


The Gathering of the Remnant

by CelestiaTrollworth



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Borders On Parody, Cussing, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Medical Procedures, Not Canon Compliant, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 105,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestiaTrollworth/pseuds/CelestiaTrollworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Vengeance, with the timeline squeezed for plot purposes (messing with time being a very popular hobby with these characters.)<br/>There are not enough surviving Vulcans, so the Council of Elders logically decides to go get some more from the past. They send an assortment of infertile men, hybrids and human friends...and things don't go too smoothly, especially when one of the elders may be trying to ruin the plans and the ever-self-promoting Admiral Roskov seems far too interested.<br/>Oh, and in the meantime...Kirk can't have sex for two weeks owing to a shore leave souvenir. Some of these people are rather potty-mouthed, though not always in English.</p>
<p>With all the sadness in the world and every indication that Beyond is also going to be angsty, this is my small antidote. es, there's a sappy happy ending. Yes, it's doubtless canon-busting, but all in good fun. Of course, I don't have any legal claim to any Star Trek characters, all of the Romulan (and old Non-Golic Vulcan) comes from the generous rihan.org, the Vulcan comes from the extensive dictionary of the Vulcan Language Institute, and I have really messed with Mestral and Solkar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: He Asked, She Told

**Author's Note:**

> For those who haven't met these characters yet, Spock's Aunt Lia is the Fleet Admiral of the Vulcan Navy...and was also a Romulan admiral in command of the Fourth Fleet. She is a very nice woman who occasionally, in the course of duty, has to dispose of naughty people. Admiral Roskov is testing her patience...and everyone else's.

“So it is your contention that you never attempted to attack the Federation?”

Ek'halitra'lan T'Lia was wearing a face that had made her the most feared of Romulan admirals and a gray Vulcan Navy dress uniform. The heavy eye makeup gave her level gaze a chilling intensity, had Admiral Roskov owned the good sense to see it, and the jagged dark scar down her cheek and neck seemed to pulse darker as he continued to question in circles. She had disposed herself in the witness chair some three and a half hours before and had scarcely moved, the drape of her dove-gray robes and the casual lean of an elbow on the armrest denying the situation its importance. “Such was never my intention. You are well aware of that.”

The crowd in the small conference center was silent, watching the questioning play out in the next room. Kirk kept his own silence even when it made him squirm. Spock, beside him, was as outwardly calm and immobile as the admiral herself. The roil of emotion barely suppressed was easy for Kirk to feel; he could even pick up Nyota's fury on Spock's other side.

To his left, Bones simmered in his seat and muttered “Bastard Roskov. He's the one that cut and ran when he thought he was gonna get shot at. Real brave when he's yelling at one woman.”

He urged the doctor to his feet and herded him to the hallway where Bones' comments might not inspire a riot. “If that's what he thinks, he's yelling at the wrong one.” Kirk felt his own grin. “You haven't got to talk to her much yet. Trust me.”

“You've met all of those people. The only ones I've met are Spock's father and grandmother, and what's the deal with her looking so young?”

“She and Skon _were_ young when they had Sarek. It's the equivalent of teenagers having a baby. If you think that's confusing, his great-grandfathers have been time traveling so much they're less than half their age on paper and younger than her. It's an interesting family.”

Bones grimaced. “Why is it, when hobgoblins are involved, 'interesting' always means we're likely to get killed?”

“At this rate, Admiral Roskov might. HQ gave him until five to ask her all the questions he wants, then he has to stop and take it up again after Federation Day if he still wants to chase his own tail. In the meantime, we have that stuff we don't talk about to do.”

“Yeah.” Bones puffed out his cheeks in a silent whistle. “I gotta hand it to you, you can talk me into doing damn near anything, and this is a doozy. Admiral Nogura really did say yes?”

“He did. I wouldn't lie to you about something that important. We are duly TDYed to Admiral T'Lia for her project and we're riding out with her family as soon as she's done here.”

They could hear the questioning staggering to a halt. “I am aware of no such thing! There were armed Romulan ships firing on Federation targets!”

“An inescapable fact of dealing with the Sundered. Some percentage of any Sundered fleet is always disloyal. A large portion of the Fourth Fleet is now so considered on that side of the Zone.”

Roskov had asked the same question at least four times now. Kirk wasn't sure why he expected a different answer. “The situation was impossible and you did nothing!”

“I did what was required to retrieve all Vulcan prisoners and assemble my forces in a defensive position that could handle any conceivable attack. The aforementioned factor of disloyalty could not be calculated with sufficient certainty to permit a quicker and more decisive response.”

“You had _months_ to get here!”

“I was on the wrong side of the Empire and deceived by the Tal Shiar, as were the others who might have prevented the _Narada's_ attack. The _Vengeance_ attack was conceived and planned entirely on Earth, where I had no access to records that might have caused me to react more quickly.”

Roskov had gone down that road four times already as well, with the same results. The future- derived cloaking on the _Narada_ had not been identifiable by any current technology, Terran or Vulcan. The Vulcan Navy's attempt to prevent the giant anomaly from reaching Vulcan had ended in disaster, along with Starfleet's rescue attempt. Lia had not intended to take over Starfleet, unless of course they planned to exterminate the Remnant of Vulcan. Why yes, she would have taken out Fleet headquarters, or anything else necessary, had that been the case. Doing otherwise would have betrayed her oath of office.

Had she not betrayed her Romulan oath by fulfilling the Federation one? “As I have said, Admiral, the Romulan oath is quite broad. I am to defend the interest of the Romulan people. On that side of the Zone, one point two trillion deluded Vulkansu live under a hellish, illegally derived and immoral government in exile that encouraged its people to murder my planet. I meditated upon that oath and concluded it was my sworn duty to bring about their liberation and unity with the Confederation of Surak by any means necessary. I have done what I could in that regard.”

“Time, Admiral Roskov,” grumbled a disgusted Nogura, banging down a gavel. “These proceedings are suspended for the next ten days, subject to cancellation should _Rear_ Admiral Roskov suddenly develop common sense. _Fleet_ Admiral--” it was impossible not to notice the slight emphasis he put on _Fleet_ , to remind Roskov he was badly outranked--”you have been most gracious in answering our questions, and I know your people don't expect thanks, but I extend them.”

“And I thank you for your impartiality.” T'Lia swept to her feet, nodding politely in his direction and pointedly not toward Roskov.

The panel left the conference and shuffled into the hallway. Nogura patted Kirk's shoulder as he went by and winked. Roskov snorted as he passed. The usual rabble of lesser officers and aides drained, then the guest of dishonor glided forth to meet a tall, thick-shouldered Vulcan man in fatigues. He held out his hands in the traditional family greeting, and Admiral T'Lia went to him, leaning into him in a weary way. “Lhairre, are you sure I can't punch Roskov?”

The man ducked his forehead to tap against hers over their joined hands. “No, elev, you have to behave. Unfortunately, so do I.”

“I have to pee and get rid of this makeup, then we're going to Pennsylvania unless I can figure out how to open the shuttle window and spit on Roskov on my way.” T'Lia mussed Kirk's hair on her way by and nearly ran into Bones. “Oh. Hello, Dr. McCoy.”

Bones stared after her as Spock fulminated his way to them. “Uh...she just...I didn't realize Vulcans could, um, express themselves that bluntly. They're usually restrained.”

“For her, that _was_ restrained,” Kirk grinned.

“What on earth have I gotten myself into?”

“A mission about which you will no doubt express endless and extravagant regret, all the while performing near miracles in spite of your whining,” Spock said. Uhura found it necessary to turn her back for a moment. “You were preparing to ask about Aunt Lia's appearance.That was the guise she wore as the Romulan admiral. It is at present unwise for her to appear in public without makeup unless she is out of uniform and not easily identifiable.”

That didn't seem to help Bones' mood. “Oh. In other words, she's a target.”

“All of us are,” Spock said blandly.

_That was mean_ , Kirk thought at him. _But funny. And unfortunately true_. He knew Spock would hear him.

With Bones in his usual hopeless mood when boarding any aircraft, they were waiting on the Vulcan Embassy roof when a middle-aged, pregnant Vulcan woman in Terran clothing bounded aboard and flung herself into the pilot's seat. “Next stop, Carbon Creek,” she said, and took off eastbound.

“Uh...” the doctor looked around in consternation. “Where's the admiral?”

“So, elev, your tradecraft still works,” Lhairre said, patting the pilot's shoulder.

“But the scar...”

“Great makeup,” said their pilot, taking the shuttle down far too close to ground level so she could buzz Roskov, who was indeed walking along the jogging trail. “Eh. Missed him.”

“Ack,” Bones whimpered.


	2. Let Us Combine Our Differences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interesting questions abound, but no one has answers yet.
> 
> Sa'mekh=father.

 

The cross-continent flight was swift and uncommonly smooth. Whatever her temperamental failings, the admiral was an excellent pilot to make up for her mtterings about not being able to go on the mission. She landed them crisply. As they emerged into the afternoon near the Carbon Creek Community Center, large red flowers spilled spicy fragrance into the air. The rest of the shuttle passengers went on ahead, but Spock stopped to look at one and Kirk stayed with him. “Svai. These used to grow just at the edge of the Forge.”

“I'm surprised they can grow here.”

“They're quite adaptable, unlike most of the Remnant.” Spock poked at the flower's central cone. “It may be unacceptable to pick and eat these here, although they're good.”

“I wouldn't dare try it.”

“I'm reasonably certain they wouldn't bother you, based on the pattern of your other allergies.” He let go of the flower, but did not go on. “One last time, Jim: are you certain?”

Of course he would ask where no one was near enough to hear their words, let alone their thoughts. You, me and the moon, as the Romulans said. “You're going, I'm going.”

“That's what you said about New Vulcan. I believe you may have found that unpleasant.”

Three weeks of hell, two major battles and sights he would never forget were all of that, but the exhaustion had gone away, the wounds had healed and he now knew numerous people who didn't mind that he was alive. “In Vulcan terms, the knowledge and experience gained outweighed the negatives. I expect the same of this mission and I'm honored to be invited.”

Spock very nearly smiled and did reach out with the tip of a forefinger to trace the top of his ear. “Dr. McCoy seems to believe you are serious. I should as well.”

“Oddly enough, I kind of like 'em. He made me promise to let him pull the tips as soon as we're done, but I get to keep Mestral's stem cells because they got rid of my peanut allergy.”

“You may also appreciate lowered oxygen requirements when you're rock climbing.”

“I will. More than that...” He hesitated; too much? Spock mentally encouraged him to speak. “When I see your family, I see what made you. I know you and your dad had interesting times and will again, but he's a good argument, as my grandmother used to say.”

“I agree. Prime says that in their worst of times, they did not speak as father and son, but they never failed to argue in useful ways.”

“As for your great-grandfathers, I feel fortunate to know them.”

“Many people feel that way about Solkar. Mestral is not such a favorite with the elders.”

“Your grandmother T'Rana seems like an interesting person as well.”

“When she is not angry, she can be a most worthy ally.”

“Your grandfather Skon is another matter, or so I hear.”

That time he did smile. “I had forgotten you have not met him. The awkward timeline...” Spock shook his head. Due to a time distortion, during the New Vulcan mess everyone had the distinct impression that Spock's grandfather had been dead for many years. A slight restoration had left him as alive and well as anyone who had survived va'Pak was likely to be. Better still, a slew of happy memories had returned with the timeline repair.

“I know this is all normal to you. It's just...I don't have that. My father was a legend, not a real person. I knew Grandma Kirk for all of a month. Kodos sent her off the day he took over. He wasn't shooting people then, just telling them to go out and die in the woods or he'd off the whole family. The few things I remember from her, I keep in mind. Mom's parents barely talk to her. Do I look like them, or Dad's side? I don't know. Having too much family would be a relief.” The idiocy of the statement made him want to bang his head on the community center wall. “Forget I said that.”

“Last year, it would have been true. Now, I know my good fortune, even if at one time it would have seemed an insane statement.” They reached the door of the community center. “Speaking of family, some seem more elevated than others.”

“Careful!” a tall, fragile Vulcan man squeaked as they neared the base of the ladder he held in a death grip. He was, indeed, a younger and longer vision of Prime. On the top rung, balancing without a handhold, a determined woman was taking swings at a piece of aluminum Golic calligraphy-- “Let us embrace our differences boldly”--with a chisel and short-handled sledge. “Hit it again on the right side ten point three centimeters straight down from where you just did.”

She half-turned and looked down, tools in hand. “Are you _sure_ you want the accent _there_?”

“Yes. It's Modern Golic, not Ancient. Oh, be careful. Won't you let me up there?”

“Modern? It's a variation on Surak. Hmph.” The woman brandished the hammer. “Who's the silversmith here, may I ask?”

“It's aluminum, not silver, it's bigger than you usually handle and it's five meters up.” No doubt Skon would have been mildly and invisibly offended had anyone suggested he was visibly worrying.

Spock folded his hands behind his back and looked up at the work. “The sign is attractive, sa'mekh'li. It is new?”

Skon gingerly turned his head toward them. “Indeed. I would offer you a greeting, grandson, but I need both hands at the moment. The former sign was well-intentioned, but not written by a native speaker. Good afternoon, Captain Kirk. Oh. My.”

“Dif-tor heh smushna, osu Skon.” He set his face blank and rendered the ta'al.

Skon nearly smiled in delight. “Peace and long life indeed! Rana, did you see this?”

“Well. _That's_ certainly different.” Sarek's majestic mother let go of the ladder again, turning back to eye up the calligraphy. It wasn't hard to see where Spock's father had gotten his build or the outward veneer of his demeanor. Even the mannerisms were similar. “Am I done up here?”

“I believe so, and do _not_ jump down!”

She had been thinking about it. Kirk knew many Vulcans wouldn't bother climbing down a single story, but Rana was a bit further up than that and her husband was already all but gnawing off his fingernails as it was. She muttered under her breath and swung herself down until she was within his reach, where he caught her in his arms and set her gently on the ground as if he were reluctant to let go. “Now stop fussing, Skon.--I must say, Kirk, that is remarkable. Your assistance is generous and most desirable since my bondmate and I are not permitted to go on this mission.”

“Father said there were health consider--” Spock stopped in mid-word. “Oh.”

T'Rana looked even more smug. Skon hunched a bit and turned deep green. “The cause was, er, unanticipated but welcome.”

After the Loss and the need to rebuild the species, even those at midlife, like Skon and Rana, were often carrying children for others. He gathered the current occupant of Rana's baby bump was homemade. “Arre,” Rana said. “She has already approved of the name. I should have named her Trellium-D.”

The neurotoxin with which a Romulan saboteur had poisoned the Vulcan Embassy staff a few months before was known to cause permanent loss of emotional control. From the look of Sarek's parents, neither minded. Rana stuck the hammer in her belt loop and resumed looking fearless and imperious, except she reached for Skon's hand and held it at her side. “This was also unanticipated,” Skon said. “And is also welcome. Spock, is your father with you?”

“He is with Solkar, doing a...ride-along? They will be here at the end of Solkar's shift.”

“Ah. He is gaining practical experience in tending injured and ill humans by accompanying an experienced healer on his rounds. Quite logical, since he spends as much time on Earth as Father and we do.” Skon folded the ladder and stepped back. Kirk looked down at the plain sign that had been removed and understood the problem. Most Vulcans would not appreciate “We should combine our different body parts with great enthusiasm.” Skon turned to his wife, not-smiling sweetly. “Your father was amused by the old one.”

“Mestral would be,” Rana muttered. “ _You_ certainly are.” She picked up the sign. “Shall we?” Did she actually smirk at him? “Ahem. Go into the building and greet the rest of them?”

With both physical meetings and Vulcan family being the rarity that they were, even followers of Surak were exchanging news of marriages and images of babies on the way. The Jarok followers and k'turr didn't pretend not to be happy in one another's presence, so in spite of what promised to be a grueling mission the room bubbled with restrained joy. At one time, Kirk couldn't have felt it. On New Vulcan, those around him had lost most of their control from the poisoning, while he had gained the ability to read them. Some of what Spock called damage was permanent. Kirk didn't mind, especially when Sarek made his way around the gathering.

“My sons.” Anyone looking on wouldn't have known how tempted Sarek was to throw his arms around both of them. He thought the sentiment back. “Nyota is well?”

“Very well, and wished you to know she regrets not being able to be here today. We visited her family for a week, attended the hearing, then she went back to work installing and testing the new communications system we developed for use on the mission. We tested it enroute and it appears to work, but she wants further verification before it is used in a critical situation.”

“There is very little you cannot do together.” _And I am so proud._ “I received my results, which were what I expected. I understand yours were less so?”

“Indeed. Possible with a human, but Vulcan children of mine will require assistance.”

“Mine were equally unequivocal. It is not possible for me to father a child naturally, given a mate of either species. I had not appreciated what a wonder you and Ruven actually are.” _And he said that out loud!_ “But that news gives us leave for the mission.”

“Hey, you three.” If Nick Mestral had ever been subtle as a Vulcan, sixty-five years of exposure to Carbon Creek coal miners had finished it. In theory over two hundred years old, he had spent so much time in stasis or time travel that he was barely Sarek's age and younger than his own daughter Rana. He surrounded Kirk with invisible affection. “You're staying with us tonight, right, Jim?”   
“It makes sense,” Kirk agreed. “Early start in the morning and we'll be here late.”

“We don't sleep much but even for us this is ridiculous, trying to train, go and get back before the Federation Council can argue. I told the old goat he should book today off, but he's still making up days he missed on New Vulcan.”

The old goat in question, Sarek's other grandfather Solkar, appeared and loomed over Nick's shoulder. Tall and broad-shouldered even for a Vulcan, he looked like walking murder in his black paramedic scrubs. Kirk knew better. He had been an excellent ambassador and was now an equally excellent healer. “Slow day. From here on it won't be. I regret to see you two can go along.”

“Father and Silek were rejected for fertility,” Sarek said. “Spock and I may go.”

“I get to go. Nick goes because who'd want more of his genes anyway? Unless you need them, Jim,” John amended. “I suppose he does have his uses.”

“The ones he just gave me seem to work. I stuck my face in a flower and didn't explode. Bones ran all the challenge tests to make sure it was safe.”

Bones had planted himself at Kirk's other shoulder, doubtless to defend him from the horde of hobgoblins. “No offense to Starfleet, but I don't know why they let you off planet with allergies that bad. Between Khan _ahem_ \--” most of the Vulcans knew, but there was no sense saying it aloud-- “and Nick's stem cells, you ought to be too mean for anything out there to even think about killing you.”

Solkar tilted his head to squint at him. “Yes, you do look acceptably green now.”

“First time anybody said _that_ to me,” Kirk grinned. “It usually scares people.”

Nick eyed him up in the afternoon light. “When a human is that shade I'm careful about staying out of hurling range. Dr. McCoy, nice job on the ears. I'll remember that if I ever need mine bobbed.”

Bones cringed. “Ow! That even sounds painful.”

“Nah, they grow back. Think about it. We fought all the time and ear tips got bitten or ripped off. Takes them a few months to look right again if you don't boost them. Maggie and I talked about that in case we got pointy kids, but the three who lived back when came out round.”

“Oh, it's recessive?”

“Give the kid a gold star! One gene, partial recessive. My job lately has been to find which of thousands of volunteers can carry Vulcan babies. Three Betazoid genes have to be there: cyanide resistance, tolerance to cuproglobin and not-hemochromatosis. We expect them on Vulcan, but they turned up all over Earth. Betazed had warp drive five hundred years before us with a lot of crashed ships and no problem blending in at all. Then we started finding _our_ genes scattered around. Maasai, Cheyenne, Shawnee ... there's a reason Shanai City sounds similar and the district capital was Chal'ga'tha. We even know which ship crashed where and which clans married into the natives. As for Serbia, half of Carbon Creek was Serbian back then and they figured I was some kind of relative. My father-in-law and I used to talk to each other without using English. It's been a revelation. Many of the elders aren't pleased.”

“That is not logical,” Spock said. “What is, is.”

“Since when has their brand of logic been logical? I'll call it a belief system, but not logic. That's why I bailed out on getting rescued way back when, best thing I ever did. Glad my kid finally got her head around that idea.” Nick nudged the padd with his knuckles as Rana came up.

Sarek's mother looked at the padd for a second, puzzled, shook her head ever so slightly and raised an eyebrow, so Spocklike that Kirk hid a smile. “We're ready to start, sa'mekh. I should say we're as ready as we're likely to be.”


	3. Combat Medicine 101: Introduction to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking a Vulcan crash course is as much fun as trying to sip water from a fire hose.

Half my heart is in the stars

the world was ours

and every day she brought me something new

the world's gone dark

forget what's left

the stars can have it all...

\--“Half My Heart” copyright 2258 D. Wanders/J. Grayson

 

_Fan-tor. Fan-wilat. Fan-wat._

_Anything. Anyplace. Anytime._

_\--Air Galactica motto_

 

Training for the mission began that evening in the big chamber that had served as a Eugenics War shelter and was now the Carbon Creek community room. A plaque on the wall recalled the 1958 mine explosion in which Nick Mestral had been a hero; another recorded the mine's life as a shelter and all the people who survived because of it. If the whitewashed, sealed walls and supported ceiling made it safe, the memory of unlikely days of salvation made it feel that way.

They needed peace. Any illusions about T'Khasi's ancient warfare left within the first minute and Kirk was lucky his lunch didn't go with them. The full-motion holovid from the Guardians of Forever let the seminar start on the battlefield as night fell. Worse yet, Ko'ku Lia was the mistress of ceremonies, and her acceptance of things others couldn't look at without barfing wasn't always as helpful as she thought. She surveyed the queasy roomful with a faintly distressed expression as she leaned back against the main table in her haze-gray fatigues with the sleeves rolled. “A little much?”

No one else was talking, so Spock did. “Yes.”

“Uh, yeah, ko'kuk,” he agreed. He wasn't sure when she had become Aunt Lia, any more than he could remember calling Sarek sa'mi for the first time; it happened as seamlessly as if it were natural.

Her expression hadn't been hard, but it softened a bit even so. “It's going to look like that. It's going to be like that. We weren't nice people back then and we did some rotten things to one another. On that side of the Zone, it's still everyday stuff. I'm going to pause the vid and let fa'sa Solkar do our introduction instead.”

The Council of Elders had named their public relations campaign the Gathering of the Remnant. The outcast community was quick to come up with The Scraping of the Barrel, The Rounding Up Of The Mavericks and All Is Forgiven If You Have A Working Uterus, but even they agreed on the need for genetic diversity. “The most logical method,” Solkar intoned in his deep velvet voice, “is to slingshot back to when thousands died in two major battles within a three-day span. We can safely retrieve anyone who had no children and is known not to have returned from the war. For those who can survive with modern treatment but could not live in their own time, we offer a chance at a new life. Bodies were cremated on the battlefield, so their absence is highly unlikely to be felt.”

The still pictures were easier to look at. Continual warfare had come to a head at the Battle of Mount Seleya and a day later the Battle of the Salt Marsh. Three warring nations' capital cities made the corners of a triangle, Gol in the mountains, Kir far northeast on the old seashore and ShiKahr at the foot of Seleya, with smaller cities like Shanai and Low Springs scattered around. The nations had been at relative peace until, one day with no warning, the army of Gol jumped ShiKahr from the south while the Kiri armies charged across the desert through, and over, the suburb of Shanai.

Spaceflight was in its infancy, with a few unmanned probes to what would be Romulus, a landing on nearby T'Kuht and a lot of ill-informed people believing they could build rockets to escape the perpetual shooting. As the worst battle in Vulcan history raged, many rushed to leave with results as disastrous as the fighting. At the end of seven days, the city of Gol was flattened, half of ShiKahr and most of Kir had been destroyed and nearly half a million people were dead or missing.

Most field medics were men, which worked out nicely for the female-short Remnant. Trios were the norm, healer, aide and slave to haul burdens. Not long ago, no one would have been allowed to look at the pre-Reform records, but those who had barred access were gone, so the committee had quickly assembled everything from correct uniforms to field rations in proper wrappers. Experienced time travelers, including Nick, got up to share what they had learned, from how to speak properly to how to swear improperly should the need arise, and after that, reluctantly, they tackled the vid again and were not quite so stunned. At long last, Lia steepled her fingers and inclined her head slightly. “That's all for today. Your study materials for morning should be on your padds.”

When most of the crowd made for the door, he sat for a bit, staring down at his notes. If any of them made sense in the morning, he decided, he'd be shocked. Spock put a hand to his back, between the shoulderblades, in a spot that somehow brought instant comfort. “Bear in mind that most of us have already studied this extensively...not by choice...in school.”

“Or came around a corner and saw it live and in color,” Lia said. “My mother-in-law had a place downtown near the Senate. We were staying there between missions, I took the girls out for a walk and we happened on a Tal Shiar visit that had gone into the street.”

“In front of little kids.”

“Most wars happen in front of children,” she grimaced. “Mine included. I hope this new little one never has to look at what the others have seen.”

In the Carbon Creek Veterans of Foreign Wars, Sarek and Spock went to the pool room with Nick while Kirk jarred some of the chest wound protocol loose from the tangle in his head. He was on his second beer when a big bony hand on the back of his neck uncrumpled most of the tension. “We stuffed your head too full.”

“Yes.” There was no use lying to John Solkar; he already knew with skin to skin contact.

“Hmm, that's not all, either. Why don't we sit over there in the corner?” The invitation was by no means an order, but he wouldn't excuse himself. They took their drinks to the corner table with their backs to the wall and a view of the door; Kirk wondered whether he had the same need or knew Kirk's. “So, you didn't expect that shore leave out of yourself...?”

He was a healer of minds as well as bodies, and good at both. Kirk wondered whether he'd have survived his nightmares had Solkar not come to take care of him on that just out of the hospital night. _Call me John. People need a name, and Solkar is too much for some bad situations._ This was one of those. “Dumb stunt. I wouldn't think twice if one of my friends...I'd make fun of them, but they were on leave, half in the bag, he got paid, why not? Okay, so the antibiotics worked and I only have two more weeks to, er, wait. But it's me, it didn't feel right and I don't know why I did it.”

“I had a bad case of broken bond syndrome from my first wife, and in that desperation I did a lot I'm not proud of. I've been around your mind and so do you. Where your father tore away has edges that can't be smoothed. They saved your life twice, dealing with that monster of a stepfather and again on Tarsus 4, but that's why you do things you don't understand.”

“Seven psychiatrists and therapists so far, and you're the first one who put it that bluntly.”

John made a _Well?_ gesture with his drink. “They didn't have the access I do. Or possibly the sexual orientation. No point in lying, is there? There's also no point in my lying about what you know I do under great stress: drink too much, drive too fast and use any other intoxicant I find. I don't think you have that last problem, but you have the first two. Evidently we also both resort to self-destructive sex.” He had a sip of his bourbon. “Why are you with us?”

“I want to help.”

“Yes. You do, with great sincerity. Because?”

“Because you're my friends.” He took a deep breath. “Because with Spock it's more than that, he's...I know he's not interested in me that way--”

“Neither is Nick interested in me like that, so I get it. You were about to say 'but.' So?”

“There's some...connection...? I've never felt anywhere else. You know what kind of crew I have. Bones can be a terrified old lady, but he's there every time I need him and I'd do anything for him. That's huge, that gut-deep human friendship I never expected. But Spock. I didn't even _like_ him and he tried to kill me twice and still...and still. By the time we got on Nero's ship it was right that I'd offer to cover him and he'd trust me with his life.”

“Believe me.” John smiled, unguarded. “I get it. Friend. Brother. If sexual preferences are compatible, lover. Beyond the bond itself, which can be all but unbreakable, some fundamental pull of the universe always seems to bring t'hy'la together. Like the stronger version of the old Vulcan saying: we may try to avoid family, but family always finds us.”

“I hope most of mine won't bother. I do wonder about my grandparents I barely knew, whether they'd have been all right or not when they took me in, whether...aah, I'm a grown man.”

“And I'm a grown bisexual k'turr, and I still want most of my family around. And that nut case of a Syrannite in-law,” he raised his voice as Nick approached.

That got him lovingly (Kirk couldn't call it anything else) rapped on the head with a pool cue. “So Janko, we getting ready for morning or what here?”

“Or what. Have you shown him the cemetery?”

“You're right. Give him a good case of the creeps.” Nick motioned him along. “Come and see.”

Much to his surprise, Sarek's mother walked up with them. The graveyard on the outskirts of town had once served a church, destroyed like most in the wars. “By the way, I felt you wondering. Janko, Jhan'kam, Serbian, Golic, both Johnny, same words, so many places. This was all overgrown,” Nick waved at the graveyard. “I came back to help clean up the radiation after contact.” Everblooming roses spilled over a wall of rough sandstone around the old graves, their markers a mix of new and old survivors. The wall itself had a lot of brass plaques, which he realized hid urns. “During all the trouble, people built the wall to stash the urns and remembered which rocks were theirs. Soon as the fighting was over, they went back and marked. The gravestones didn't all do so well, but ours was safe under a bunch of berry canes.” Nick knelt to brush away grass clippings and make a small prayerful gesture. The stone read Mestral at the top, under it Maria Magdalena 1918-2023 and Nicholas George Sr. 1918-2024. Nick patted Maggie's name. “Hi, sweetheart.” A third small panel caught Kirk's eye: Zorana Elisabeta 1962. “I built her a stasis box in case her heart could be fixed someday. Shows you how sentimental Vulcans can get with exposure to humans. Not a bad thing, only so you know.”

T'Rana bent down to touch the small stone. “Did you name me for her, sa'mi?”

“Sort of.” Was there more Nick wanted to say? “This mission is going to put us all through the wringer. Try not to get hurt, okay, kid?”

Lying upstairs at Nick's house, he tried to remember the last time he had willingly and happily spent a night at a private home on Earth. Nick's wife's ship was in town, and they were in the kitchen talking over their days, discussing his mission and her next trip. It was nothing like his mother's rare visits with Frank. The first minutes' overblown endearments always turned into bitter whispers, then screaming and worse. He couldn't imagine Nick screaming at anyone, let alone trying to hit her. As they went by to their room, he sensed a friendly passion as comfortable as an old sweatshirt.

He was welcome, that was what was different. He wasn't in the way; he happened to be there and no one minded. The couple kept double bunkbeds in the room for grandchildren, and instead of feeling juvenile, it felt safe to slide into the bottom bunk. Spock had been in the top bunk talking to Nyota earlier, then had been looking over the class materials, laid them aside to meditate and fell asleep instead. He looked much less dangerous when he slept, and it was clear from the warm hum of his aura that he, too, felt safe and wanted here. Even Sarek seemed to be more settled among most of his remaining family. “My home may be in the stars,” Kirk said to himself, “but here isn't bad.” He, too, fell asleep with the next day's notes on his mind.

 

Kirk had always been one of the brightest students in any class. After too much need to patch himself up after Frank, the crazies on the colony, or ill-advised lovers and bar fight opponents had pummeled him, he had taken all of the Starfleet cross-training short of medical school because it was interesting, useful, easy for him and most of all a diversion.

Being the slow kid in class was a revelation. The amount of information he was expected to absorb in that fourteen-hour day might have been impossible had he not been through hell on New Vulcan. From time spent with Spock's father and John Solkar, he knew healers worked with their minds as much as with instruments, with their sensitive hands as much as with electronic sensors. The ambassadors had all learned the hard way to train as ulen-hassu, paramedics, before going out, because minor emergencies could become major when no one on a mission could treat Vulcans. The further brutally concentrated training Sarek had undertaken after va'Pak made him roughly a nurse-practitioner, capable of managing most physical emergencies and ordinary mental injuries for his large and woebegone, mostly orphaned young embassy staff. Even offworlders had undertaken the same rapid learning in honor of Vulcan friends or family.

The current rapid training was going to take all of them, including returned Romulan, camouflaged human and Betazoid-hybrid volunteers, to the level of elite combat medics, provided they could sip knowledge from a fire hose. The combination of mind and body in relation to illness and injury was daunting. Halfway through the third hour the current presenter asked “How many are psi-null or consider themselves impaired?” To his amazement, his wasn't the only hand that went up. “Have your team's primary healer meld with you before your mission for access to their psi controls. We estimate that will enable you to perform mental first aid and shield you from the inevitable harmful exposures.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” he murmured to Spock beside him.

“Nor had I considered it. I should pay more attention.”

“Yes,” said the healer without a trace of a smile, though they could feel it hanging over them. Even Spock thought _?!_ “What those of you who were not born Vulcan are doing is commendable, but not without risk. There is an eighty-six percent chance that your team will have at least one casualty. We will attempt to retrieve our killed or injured, but be aware that if it is unsafe for the other team members, the body must be destroyed and it is uncertain whether an unlinked katra can be saved. Meld, people. Strongly.”

That was only the first jarring moment. The details he would need in order to help a battlefield healer grew hourly, and he had the horrible suspicion that Spock already knew most of them. Twice he bailed Kirk out by laying a hand on his arm to give him some emergency bit of knowledge a Vulcan schoolchild would have had. During a pause he muttered “Jim, you're keeping up. Others are starting from much further back.”

“Thinking this hard is a new experience,” he sighed, “and like a lot of mine, unpleasant.”

Mestral (Kirk reminded himself _don't call him Nick when we're on the planet, he's Mestral there)_ was sitting next to them. “Coming up against our limitations seldom is, but it has to happen to make us grow. If every door opened easily, we'd never learn to pick locks.”

He searched for the source of the quote. The usual fall-back guess was “Surak?”

“Bob Hravat, guy I used to work with at the coal mine,” Nick said, patting his back. “You'll get this. I don't make stupid kids and they don't have stupid friends.”

When he staggered out of the seminar room with his head overfilled again, Spock nearly made him melt down when he said “Tomorrow should be easier. It's only twelve hours.”

“My brain may not literally explode, but it feels as if facts are oozing from my ears. We'll be dealing with critical injuries. If I get this wrong I'll kill someone.”

Spock's dark eyes were downcast. “Many of our decisions can kill multiple people at once. After my killing six and a half billion by mistake, one life at a time is very nearly a relief.”

“You're not still...” Yes, he was blaming himself, and not mildly. “You do not get to take the blame for _that_. Not having information you need does not amount to fault. You're why there's anything left at all.”

“And why we're doing this,” Sarek said, drifting up behind them. “It was his idea.”

“You will need to take care of the meld,” Spock said.

Kirk looked him over uneasily. “You sure you're okay?”

 _Yes_ , he heard, and felt the gratitude behind it. “I'm going to call Nyota for the results of the communications test.” _I want to hear her voice. I need it as much as yours. You understand. Thank you for understanding. Prime is right. I need to be beside you_. “You need to meld with Sarek.”

 


	4. Meld and Meltdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They'll understand each other better than either believes.

Spock left the two of them in the hallway not looking at each other for several difficult minutes until Sarek broke the silence. “Not here. Too many people.” He started down the hall, and Kirk joined him, sensing growing uneasiness from what should have been a hard-shielded mind.

Should have been. Was it? Sarek had been exposed, as they all had, to levels of Trellium-D that if left untreated had killed many Vulcans in the past. Neither his control nor Spock's was likely to recover completely. Given an ordinary, calm life on T'Khasi, it might not have been distressing, but an empath who had a catalog of misery behind him even before va'Pak needed all the shields he could get. Kirk had witnessed Sarek knock a Tal Shiar admiral into helpless madness in less than five minutes with a few of his selected memories.

The thought came to his mind from some back room. _He's_ _afraid I'm going to see what he went through in that prison, and he's ashamed even if he'll never admit it. He doesn't realize I already saw it when he was fighting with Hakeev. If he knew what happened to me, maybe it'll help him._

_Or maybe he'll be horrified the way that Starfleet therapist was, and never talk to you again--_

_No. I'm going to show him._

The old mine entry now led to the center and its offices on one side and what was labeled as the Black Chapel of St. Nicholas on the other, with several smaller meditation rooms beyond. The chapel, one of the mine's early rooms, held an altar with candles burning in boxes of sand. Beyond it, they found an empty meditation room and sat awkwardly contemplating one another. Sarek cleared his throat and said “If you are prepared.”

_Nervous? Him? No. All but paralyzed with fear._ Kirk nodded. “Go ahead. It's all right.” 

Sarek raised a hand carefully, fingers splayed, but hesitated. Did he know Kirk could see him debate the damage he might do, the ruin he had caused to Hakeev? Ah; the thoughts hung in the air, clear as bells. He hadn't melded with anyone outside the family since then. Even his main instructors in healing were his uncle and grandfather, who linked to him long ago and were big, tough, fully Vulcan and highly skilled. “If any part of this is too intense, and you need me to stop, tell me immediately.”

“Of course.” Say it, or not? Say it. Sarek needed to hear it aloud. “Sa'mi, I trust you implicitly. You're not going to hurt me. You wouldn't. I'm safe with you.”

A human that frightened would have beensweating buckets. Sarek kept the outward signs to a tiny hand tremor that could have been explained away by the toxin's aftereffects. “It doesn't always work that way. You saw what can happen if I lose control.”

“What had to happen when you gave up control in order to save us. This is not that and now is not then. Spock and I have done this a number of times in the line of duty because it's so efficient. Let me show you the memory I hide.”

He couldn't initiate the meld himself, but once Sarek did he could steer.  _Now let me show you why I understand._ The Vulcan's sharp intake of breath preceded astonishment, vast guilt, shame, sudden thunderstruck relief. Only the form was new to Kirk; he understood the urge to hide when it was useless, the wish to run when there was nowhere to get away. The violence of buried Vulcan emotions was no longer so strange and did not shock him. He turned their minds to all of that.  _I understand. It's all right. You can see anything in there if you want to. It may help_ .

Fail to escape a Tal Shiar prison on broken feet? No better than failing to escape a house as a small child with a broken ankle. “He must have fallen off the swings,” his stepfather said to some social worker in a long line of them. “You know how kids are.”

Bedroom door locked from the outside and windows nailed shut for a week of hot weather? Chained to the wall of the cell for days at a time.

Waiting for the interrogator to come up the stairs, never sure what today's misery would be? Waiting for Frank to come upstairs, never sure how drunk he was. Pain was coming, either way; what would it be on that day, on that long night?

Waiting for morning on Tarsus 4. Would there be food today? Who would get the extra half a cracker and what would he have to do for it? Who would die? Waiting for footsteps on the stairs. Which room first, his or the one next door? Would there be screams or whimpers down the hall? Would they be cut off in mid-howl with the dragging noises after?

Freedom? Ever? There were the commandos bursting in. There was the day the Corvette went into the quarry, causing enough trouble to make people clue in to what they should have known.

_How fast?_ He saw a Harley speedometer pegged on a straight flat desert highway.  _Death Valley. I prefer the ride on summer nights_ . 

_Top down, flying,at least a hundred and fifty klicks an hour, probably more. I didn't look, I only felt. If we go fast enough, what bothers us is left behind us_ . 

So _?_ A well-tuned flitter knifed between rock formations and carved sand over the Forge, leaving every nerve alive and bright against the dark behind it. 

_Yes. That. Where's your music?_

A mental playlist began.  _The elders disapproved of most of it_ .

_They don't know what they were missing_ . 

_They missed so very much. Our sacrifices were largely unnecessary and often harmful. Peace and contentment were the goals. We had stagnation. Surak said to cast out fear. We deified it. Spock designed the_ Kobayashi Maru  _believing humans were unafraid because they were unaware. He didn't know his own human half was talking if he had listened to it_ .

_He does now. Better, at least._ He showed the brief version of the day help came to Tarsus 4 _. Afterward, everyone acted as if I were an unexploded bomb. It led me to act like one._

Sarek shared a quick image of Lhairre smashing off the chains, bending over the limp sack of fever and broken bones that was left of him and scooping him up with terrible tenderness, stepping over the jailers' bodies as he ran out of the building with Lia as a rear guard.  _Privacy was a given, but nothing travels faster than Vulcan gossip. There is a general understanding of what happens when the Tal Shiar abuse a prisoner. An unbonded male is unlikely to have a choice of mates afterward._

_But you were so young. When the next Time came, you'd have died._ He had a fuzzy image of a young man staggering out into the desert and collapsing.

Sarek confirmed the image.  _I was expected to do so quietly, without complaint, and preferably on a different planet where only my parents would be required to know of my disposal._

_Sa'mi, that is utterly disgusting. You did nothing wrong._

_You did nothing wrong either._

_Yes, but people said they were trying to help. Maybe that's worse than just writing me off._

Some of it he thought in words, some only in quick images.  _The Earth embassy had been our family's post. When they took Rea to Gol, I went to Earth as Father's aide. The prison injuries had barely healed when I was shot._ Another image of a heartbroken Skon and Solkar at his bedside arguing gently with other healers who shook their heads: no, too dangerous, that bullet must remain, the heart is damaged, his life will be cut short either way.  _I became that sickly child again. It went on for years, especially after Grandfather's last assassination when no one else seemed able to help me as he had. Mother tried two more mates for me, but I could not bond with them. After the second, the healers gave up and told my parents to cherish what time we had._

_My brother brought his friend to visit in case fresh topics of conversation would help, but I was too ill to get off the sofa and greet her properly._ There was Amanda, young and vivacious, sweeping into the room like a cloud of joy as he tried to struggle upright. _She always said Silek did everything but throw us into a room and nail the door shut._

_He wasn't interested?_

_In having her as family, yes. In having her in his life to read romantic poetry with, yes. As a wife, no. He's not ordinarily sexually attracted to anyone and was afraid he'd deprive her of what she was very fond of, but she was very dear to him and he to her. Best friends, I believe you would say?_ There was the great dark ragged crater where Amanda belonged, and his brother sobbing aloud on a dark night in the embassy meditation room _._

_I know. God knows, she loved you._

_She once told me that getting to know me was like taming an abused horse, frightened and dangerous because of it. She didn't understand how violent being an ambassador is. Solkar came back from his latest assassination attempt three years before Spock was born. By that time, she had been through two of my first three and had to join me in the questionable shuttle crash while she was halfway through pregnancy. He almost lived._

Kirk knew about baby James, who had survived without intervention only to be lost when his mother nearly died of internal injuries.  _You gave him a Terran name?_

_We hadn't thought of a Vulcan one yet. They are traditionally suggested by the parents through the bond unless the child has a strong opinion. Spock's was an idea I had on the way home the day he was born. The latest ancestor to use it was, like him, a very distinguished scientist._

It was only a glimpse, but he knew. _He has a Terran name._

_From conception. Ask him if you dare._ It was very nearly a playful thought.  _For that matter, I do._

_Terra Prime, Keep Earth Human.._ .Another image. The marriage license filed in San Francisco had to look like two humans.  _That wasn't right either._ The quiet between them brought a sense of mending on both sides, relief so profound it dampened Kirk's eyes.  _And you doubt your skill as a healer, osu?_

The transferred relief was even stronger.  _And you doubt yours?_

_All I ever try to do is fix the broken parts that come my way._

_Which is why so many broken people do._ The pause was not angry, only meditative, each surveying the other's damage without pity. Instead they found recognition, admiration for their resilience, acceptance, the well-hidden mutual fondness for Spock and his own iron soul. Oh, yes, and the job they were supposed to be taking on.  _We have forgotten the matter at hand, have we not?_ Sarek found the relevant areas of his ability and linked them so Kirk would have access to the knowledge _._ On the way past the Black Chapel, Sarek held up a hand for a second and went in. He knelt, lit a thin candle, set it in the sand and retreated. They walked back to Nick's house without another word, but not without peace between them.

 

The next day's class wasn't as daunting. Much of the morning was escape and evasion, taught by Aunt Lia. Since she had practiced successfully for over sixty years among the Romulans, her insights made him pay attention. He had learned to distinguish one nation from another during the evacuation and his time on New Vulcan; now he learned how to discern rank when often only admirals and generals wore insignia, simply by watching interactions. “No harm will be done if you call a low-ranking aide _osu_ , and it's proper for service members to show that level of respect for any civilian,” Lia said, “but not being effusive enough to generals you meet may get you executed because they're jerks.”

“Important safety tip,” Kirk gulped.

“I doubt they're worse than some of the admirals we've dealt with,” Spock said blandly, loud enough for his aunt to hear.

“You are correct,” Lia agreed, straight-faced but with an undercurrent of merry menace. Kirk thought back to the image of the long-ago commando raid to retrieve Sarek, and didn't want to think about how the dead jailers got that way. “Practice today and on the way: bow slightly with your hands folded for one of equal rank, more for an elder or a superior, and seriously if an angry general is near.”

Kirk thought, louder than he meant to, _The madder they are, the fancier you salute_. He forgot she could hear him. “Captain, you have extensive education in Federation military customs, while many of our volunteers have no military experience and little contact with soldiers. Are you open to answering questions? I realize not everything will transfer, but there are many similarities.”

He got to his feet and bowed ostentatiously. “As you wish, most esteemed fleet admiral.” Being grilled felt more natural than sweating over memorization. He answered questions for ten minutes before it dawned on him that Aunt Lia had bailed him out by giving him a task in which he had supreme confidence. He shot a sidewise glance at her, and she winked.

In the afternoon, they trained in their teams. It went without saying that John and Nick would be together as Team One, taking along the admiral's husband Lhairre. Kirk, Spock and Sarek became Team Nine. The admiral demonstrated the last of their uniforms and equipment and showed another hologram from the Guardians of Forever so they would see the way the gear moved in actual use, mercifully during an ancient training exercise and a parade.

“Triads have always been the standard in most military operations, with the occasional addition of a fourth to carry, pilot, drive or stand reserve where there is high probability of loss. Sniper, spotter, medic. Lead intel, sub and guard. Psi warrior, backup and sentry. In this case, it's medic, aide and burden bearer. When you're suited up, we'll have the historian check that nothing has gone amiss.” The admiral observed everyone's technique and pointed out the extras for those in certain situations. She even covered how to open field rations without making noise, once again enlisting Kirk to show some of what he had learned. “You will find people in dire need, especially on the second and third nights,so be careful in offering food. Jim understands. If there are a large number of hungry, they may rush the team. Even dried fruit packets can save a life because of the quick energy. While you cannot risk being identified as modern, the presence of helpful strangers is on the record. Questions?”

And with that, training was over. He wasn't sure what to think except that no one could possibly have taught him enough. “It could take longer,” Sarek said, “but knowledge is one thing, the ability to act upon it another. Diplomacy is the same way.”

“I should review tonight.”

“No, you should sleep,” Spock said. “And I should meditate. But first, Jim, you should eat, because you are once again forgetting, and so are you, Father.”

“And that spaghetti sauce in the cooker at home won't take care of itself. Come on,” Nick growled. “We'll be living off whatever soon enough.”

 


	5. Anything, Anyplace...Anytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sneaking away to Vulcan is complicated. Being there is about to be more so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Captain Rai is completely camp gay. In my head, he sounds exactly like Stephen Stucker, aka Johnny in the great movie Airplane. Like Lia's makeup, his flaming act has a good reason behind it.

Anything, Anywhere... _Anytime_

 

While the ground teams had been training, so had the medical support teams who would be taking in and treating the retrieved people and animals. The slingshot vehicle, the large Air Galactica cargo vessel _Shaishonna_ , just fit inside the massive auxiliary cargo bay on the dreadnought _Seleya_. “If they don't see it, the Federation can't complain,” Lia explained as she led the way from the bay to the bigger ship. “As far as they know, the _Seleya_ will be on routine patrol in its usual role as a medical mercy ship for all of the Vulcan colonies with a side visit to 40 Eridani for what we'll call a religious mission. No lie, we'll drop off the ashes of some recently deceased elders who want to be near the old site. In the meantime, I'd like you all to be familiar with the facilities on board my t'hy'la Rai's ship, which is...”

“Fabulous!” Kirk had met the man. Bones hadn't. It was not possible to look at Captain Rai without wanting to laugh, which was exactly how the big k'turr Golan wanted it. Otherwise, it was unlikely he would have chosen bright lavender fatigues for his entire crew and gobs of gold braid for his own broad, and very tall, shoulders. He was the only Vulcan Kirk could recall wearing a gold earring in one of his small, elegantly pointed ears, bright against his dark skin. Bones managed to keep his reaction to a gulped-back giggle. One of Rai's outflung arms nearly bashed him as Rai lunged toward Lia. “Dyypan susse-thrai, welcome aboooooard!”

“I missed you, knvuk fehill'curak. Next time I'll aim better.” What they were doing originated in the Vulcan family greeting, but degenerated into actual hand-slapping and some kind of elbow-bumping maneuver. Bones' translator was working perfectly, judging by his horrified expression and slow edging backwards. She patted the artificial womb shoulder bag Rai was carrying cross-body. “So this one is doing very well, I see. No name yet, sa'bath?”

“He hasn't said anything about it and we haven't come up with anything just yet. We're not even sure how to do his clan name, S'chn T'gai or T'Moran.” Rai unzipped the side of the womb to uncover the viewing port. A curious tiny boy, the size of a human newborn but likely still several months from wanting to be on the outside, peered out. “He's just growing like a grapevine, tall and skinny as Silek, and look at _you_ , Ta'an,” Rai said to the admiral's belly. “You're growing sooooo fast! You'll be running Engineering before I know it. It's so much fun to be pregnant together.”

“You know Khart'lan Kirk, but this is Dr. Leonard McCoy. Len, I believe you've figured out this is my Rai. He and my baby brother decorated this ship, so any compliments or complaints go to him. Shall we give him the tour, Rai?”

“But of course.” He swept a hand toward the corridor. “The wards are this way.”

Compared to the dark warship décor aboard Lia's flagship, the _Seleya_ was all muted shades, dim lighting and peace. There was soft upbeat music in the background and art on the walls, not hard-edged traditional Vulcan art but desert flowers and abstract collages in tasteful pastels. Had he not known it was a ship, he would have assumed he was in a very well-appointed hospital meant for VIPs. “Silek picked out most of the art and I matched the colors, once we got over here to finish fixing it up,” Rai said proudly. “Do you like it, Doctor?”

“I've been in a lot of hospitals,” Bones said, “but I have serious envy right now. How?”

“Oh, that. Remember, part of the idea of having these great big ships was to wreck the Romulan defense budget. Cost overruns were our thing. If there was a piece of medical equipment we could use in the Empire—or smuggled across the Zone, better yet, so we could make it even more expensive—we have it. When va'Pak happened, we were twice as glad we did it. Being around pro football as long as I was before this line of work gave me an eye for what works for patients. I'm no doctor, mind you, just a big old offensive tackle, really offensive if the wrong people decide to bother mine.”

“I'll try not to do that,” Bones gulped.

“While we're waiting on the other end of your slingshot, we're going to make a big old patrol loop just like everything's normal and come back right as they do. Can't have the Federation asking questions, you know? You can train on any of the equipment you want, get used to working with our other senior staff and all of you finalize your plans, as much as you can before you see what comes back. Most of the Vulcan doctors we have are just back from Romulan prisons or used to be Romulans, so everybody starts fresh except Davy Wanders and T'Khai Judy. By the time we pick up all the retrievals, you'll be all set to take care of them.”

“And have everything I can imagine to do it with,” Bones admitted.

 

Two days out, the go teams separated from the medical staff aboard the _Seleya_. Kirk honestly thought Bones was going to cry. He looked at Spock once as if he were about to ask something and couldn't bear to. Spock gave him the faintest hint of exasperation and said “You know I will.”

Nick walked by, sized up the situation and patted the doctor's shoulder. “Anybody gets after these two, they'll deal with me first, how's that?”

“He's not bad for a hobgoblin,” Bones sighed, “but, you two--”

“Doctor. Behave while we are gone,” Spock said. “Otherwise, you will deal with Aunt Lia.”

That made it easier to walk down the hallway and board the smaller ship inside the cargo bay. As soon as they vacated the space, Captain Rai's crew would begin unfolding the panels and wiring boards that would convert the huge hold into space for rescued animals and people.

Lia had come to the smaller ship with her husband and their doctor daughter. While she was as outwardly calm as Spock, he could feel the impact letting go of all of them was having on her. “I'll do my best, Aunt Lia,” he said.

She gave him a wrenched-out half-smile. “You all be careful. As I said before, we weren't nice people and we did rotten things.”

The doctor bit her lip, doubtless thinking no one noticed. “I'd better get back, sa'mi, sa'kuk Sarek. Spock, take care of your human. He looks far too Vulcan for his own good right now.” She came close to running down the hallway.

Sarek flicked his eyes toward the interior of the ship, and Kirk took the hint to leave the admiral to her husband. He glanced back once to see them hands clasped and heads bowed, Lhairre murmuring “Don't worry, elev.”

They turned a corner and Spock looked down at his padd. “Ah. From Nyota. It still works.” He paused. “The new system. It will be necessary to test it periodically.”

“Of course.” At one time, that many people around him taking leave of loved ones would have made him boil with jealousy just as the enforced celibacy would have nagged at him. This felt different. The sense of aloneness that had plagued him anytime he was off his ship had been pushed away by...family? He felt Spock's glance, looked up to see it with one of those tiny flickers of smile and the silent thought: _you catch on slowly for a genius_.

The merchant marine ship had a large cargo bay and a smaller passenger compartment with small staterooms lining a cabin and galley which were together the size of _Enterprise's_ bridge. The teams went aboard and stowed their gear, then returned to the cabin for a final briefing from the ship's captain, who, in another magnificent act of nepotism, happened to be family as well. Kirk approved highly, having seen the kind of help the captain was in a crisis. Besides, though he had met Ru only a few months before, he had become fond of him as quickly as he had of Spock.

In his Air Galactica black, hands clasped behind his back, Captain Ruven addressed them without ceremony. “Your datasets will appear as period-correct but have full modern capability. The controls should be self-explanatory. Each team has its list of critical retrievals and locators, as well as safe beam-down and return spots. You will also find the app to verify that anyone else you find dying will have no further impact on T'Khasi. Of course, the whole object is to affect _our_ future.”

The entire gathering agreed. “Younger, childless women are the priority if the sitch does not permit full retrieval. Consent is imperative if the person is conscious. If they are not, bring them. They will be in shock when they find themselves here, but won't everyone? For our non-Vulcan volunteers, temperature, gravity and atmosphere are at surface normal on our way out so you can acclimate. Primary medics, remember their Triamox...” He went on confirming assignments. “Team Nine, Sarek, Spock and Kirk, Shanai Guards evac hospital inside D'H'Riset...” At list's end, he looked around and cracked a smile. “You got all that?”

“Not even close, but it's on my padd,” John Solkar yawned pointedly.

“It should be, sa'mi. You're the one who scheduled most of it.” Ru had grown up as Solkar's son, and the easy way the two of them teased made Kirk jealous in a way he couldn't tolerate in himself. He couldn't think it too loudly, because Ru was as much an empath as his biological father. “Just for that, _you_ do the pickup speech.”

Solkar put his huge voice in full Ambassador Making A Declaration mode. “The white zone is for loading and unloading only...” Mestral whacked him. “Not that kind of pickup? As your training has already taught, arrange your wounded in standard transporter platform configurations, with those you judge most critical in the first upload. Two beam-ups per team per mission are scheduled in predawn hours to minimize any chance of pre-warp contact. Imminent deaths you cannot stabilize will be case by case. Secure all potential spine injuries, no matter how minor, on backboards before transport and offer sedation to anyone conscious because I have experience with being beamed up with multiple broken bones and can assure you that it really frickin' hurts. ”

“Very good, sa'mi. 'Really frickin' hurts' is a medical term, correct?” Details went on: the project had identified five hundred either in the black-tag ward of field hospitals or on the road who might be recovered on the first night. They reviewed assignments on the widely scattered field, areas to avoid and retrievals with family suitable for rescue.

Solkar reminded them that the Council had tried to ask advice from Surak's katra since he had been a slave at the battle. _va'Pak_ had such a profound effect on him that his soul had been all but silent in the months since, saying only “I require seclusion.” Since that meant a Vulcan, with or without a body, should _not_ be left alone, the healers tried to brighten his ark with news of babies in the family and crops on newly terraformed planets. He finally said “I suppose that's pleasant enough,” and began to comment, in a weary way, on some of the issues, complaining that it would take far less effort to “just fix it all with that time travel you're so fond of.” The elders passed along his suggestions, the scientists decided it was worth a long-term shot and began their calculations, and for the meantime the Office of Temporal Distortion Research consulted the Guardians of Forever.

“No one in this room who goes down to the planetary surface is to be left behind, dead or alive,” the mission commander repeated. “Anyone who dies or is too badly injured to be extricated must be cremated on the spot. No one can know us as modern unless they're coming up, they're alive now or there is _definite_ historical record of their having suspected contact, as in the case of General T'Shaara. You _may,_ in fact Surak thinks we _must_ , render aid to known survivors, including him.”

“So we'll be there because we should have been there. Verb tenses become confusing,” Mestral said with all the solemnity he could manage. “We bring the last load up to the ship and then--?”

“And then the healers and aides all clear out to decon, get something to eat and most of all drink, and rest. The primary healers are going to be under heavy stress the whole time and should avoid the wards as long as possible. Curiosity about a patient's status can be fulfilled on the net. All healers, especially our full-bore empaths, remember to ground before you treat, when you return and as often as necessary while you're working. That minute it takes you may seem wasted, but we all know how critical it is.”

Ru nudged Kirk with a padd carrying a vid of an unborn baby girl. “That's our Kariin, Winter. Wouldn't you know, she's a full empath.” He added silently _We didn't want to name her Amanda in case Spock and Nyota want the name someday, so we named her for our sister Karen who didn't make it_.

 _I got it, and that is a beautiful idea._ “The name's as pretty as she is. No Vulcan town is going to be adult-centered any more.”

Ru agreed. “A whole new world, in every sense. We were in the minority because we always intended to have a big family. For most, it's an entirely new way of considering matters.” He glanced across the room to Sarek, who was talking to another relative. “ _Kaiidth_ , but for one extra second to let Spock catch her before she fell. Or for leave to go and get her before.”

“What harm could it do? She wasn't going to...I know, I know, people who can reproduce first, but why can't we at least ask?”

“I did. They said to wait. Easy for them. I worried about Sarek even when I thought he was my nephew and twice as much since,” Ru agreed. “Amanda was likely to go first, but we hoped it would be decades yet. Kariin may be some comfort to him.”

When it came to comfort, having Ru along in the desert would have been major, but he was nothing if not fertile. Besides, the ship needed her captain and their team already had a healer. The object of concern made his way across the room. “Kirk, you are prepared?”

“ _Ha, sa'mi._ I know you are.”

“ _Kaiidth_ , but that it may be so.” Ah, the most Vulcan of expressions: “it is what it is, but I hope it turns out my way.” Had he been human, he'd have been green around the gills and hyperventilating.

He side-eyed Sarek. “Walk with me.” Experience with Spock had taught him that got an upset Vulcan talking without direct eye contact or making them stand still when they were ready to explode. “I know you can do this. I've seen you on New Vulcan. If you can perform under fire directed at you, personally, you can do anything you have to when the shooting is random.”

“Not precisely. Some of our targets will require immediate aid far beyond what I have done without a qualified healer ready to intervene.” Ah, there it was.

“You _are_ a qualified healer now. Now you know why John Solkar has his bad moments.” _And_ , he thought, _why Sarek didn't have this conversation with him, respected healer that he is_.

“That is another concern. Kirk, my birth-son will be reluctant to do this for me. If you see me engaging in unhealthy behaviors, I request that you...” he looked for a word, “...call me on it?”

“I would ask you do the same for me. Sa'mi, we know where we've been and what we've seen and done. We need to be here and do this with him. That won't make it easy, but we're going to do it.”

“Damn straight, boy.” He hadn't recognized Nick ( _no, he's Mestral now!_ ) for a second because he was wearing actual Vulcan clothing. “Got a real name yet?”

They all stared at one another. With all of their obsessive planning, body modding and Spock's careful mind melds to get his language up to speed, they had missed the one essential that could have fingered them in a heartbeat. What came out of Kirk's mouth was impolite, perfectly pronounced and made Mestral cackle. “Hey, you even learned _that_! It'll come in handy.”

“Yes, Nicholas?” The deep voice from over his head was equally unmistakable, and at least he'd seen Solkar ( _remember, don't call him John, don't call Nick that, it's Solkar and Mestral now_ ) in native clothing a few times. “He doesn't have a father-in-law to name him.”

“Maggie's dad and I barely spoke English, but we liked each other, so we cobbled conversations together out of Serbian and Syrannite. They're close enough we could fill in by waving our hands around. 'Other name no got, Mestral?' I said 'People mine got clans but only one name got.' 'No good, no good, you need name, nickname, wait, you Nick. Ya. Nikolai. Patron saint, coal miner. Good Serb name, Nicholas George. Ya.' So I was. Wait, kid, your birthday's in spring, right? Sikar has a nice ring to it.”

“It also doesn't mark him as one nation or another,” John agreed. He turned that calm black gaze on Sarek. “Don't you dare apologize or pretend you aren't nervous. In your terms, the cause is more than sufficient. You. Will. Do. Well.”

A Terran would have been tempted to salute at such an order. Sarek merely inclined his head slightly in thanks and turned to look at the screen. The black void where Vulcan belonged was all too clearly visible as the ship began to accelerate toward 40 Eridani.


	6. Slingshot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slingshot maneuvers are nobody's favorite thing.

A dozen kinds of incense drifted light on the air of the ship's hallways. The vision of emptiness unsettled everyone; on top of that, the roaring psychic echo of the Loss was still too strong for the empaths in the group, who went around with dulled voices and downcast eyes. There was still, and would long be, a great cloud of dust from the Battle of Vulcan and from the many Vulcan transport ships that had tried to leave. The cloud was speckled with small anomalies from the interaction of the distant collapsed black hole with bits of warp cores and fields, so the ship shuddered now and then as they bumped memories. Kirk ( _Sikar_ , he reminded himself, _you are Sikar now_ ) tried to leave no emotions jutting out for the upset to trip over.

“I was out here,” one passer-by whispered to another. “All we could do was lock onto large groups and all we had was a cargo transporter. So many aboard were badly hurt from falling or rough transports. That huge ship didn't see us, so we got away, but barely.”

“I wasn't sure she and the babies were alive until we unloaded on Earth four days later. There were so many, jammed in so tight, no one could move around to ask. That big inbound freighter took half of us on the second day so the injured could be helped, and they were on the other vessel. When I saw them, I admit I lost control.”

“The cause was sufficient. I have never regained it. There was space, we could have taken more, but no time. The ship behind us tore in two and we could pick up only a fraction of those in their hold before it failed entirely.”

Anyone who was left had a story, and they all seemed to be murmuring them at once, humans and Betazoids trying to comfort without being obvious. The only remaining Vulcan psychiatrist had tried to prepare them, but Davy was too valuable to bring along in the potentially dangerous slingshot; he was waiting back on the hospital ship with Bones. Kirk's heart ached for Sarek, who was outwardly calm and expressionless but still struggling, with no apparent way to help.

He was relieved when Spock settled on his right with the gentlest of bumps against him and put a hand to his back. _Whatever happens, we have each other_.

“Why is that such an instant relief?”

He felt Spock's instant of _Huh_? then the realization that it was another bit any Vulcan would have known, but humans would have no reason to guess. “That spot is directly over a nerve plexus. It works on all mammalian species and is considered publicly acceptable, especially when dealing with the wounded or small children.”

“More important safety tips. You should have come with an owner's manual.”

That got him the smirk and the eyebrow. “I am not the one who has so many allergies that Dr. McCoy exhausts his supply of painful things to do to you because he cannot remember which previous attempts caused the problem at hand.”

“Touche. I'm still nervous about this whole thing. I know, you don't get nervous.”

“Not at all.”  _And I have learned to lie surprisingly well_ .

Ru came over to them, suppressing a grin because he sensed their mutual teasing. “Captain, er, Sikar, several of these healers would like to hear our experiences with slingshot travel.”

A dozen doctors, medics and nurses had followed him. Talking about the profound confusion and disorientation they were about to run into shouldn't have helped them, but Sikar was very much aware it did. The small crowd listened attentively when he described the need to keep from falling. Those who hadn't already knelt in a safe place decided to do so even before Ru suggested it.

“I know you're all volunteers, but in my experience this is an ugly way to time-travel. The Guardian is much, much easier, but while it would work very well for busloads of healthy people going to view a historic event, it is not suited for the number of unconscious patients we would have to carry through on this mission without being detected. I'll give you a countdown. Those who can enter a deep meditative state may find it useful to do so by the time I call ten seconds. Either kneel here in the hallway and hold onto the viewscreen sill, or lie down to avoid falling. The effects are terrible, but generally perceived as the length of a single breath. You should recover your ability to think within one to three seconds after we break out. You will be violently dizzy for a few minutes after. I'm wearing a space sickness patch and will be strapped into the command chair so there should be no interruption in control of the ship once we exit the temporal displacement.” He went up the few steps to the command pod and called back “One minute.”

“Ru has done this so often,” Sarek said, kneeling with them and holding onto the sill, “that we could not be in better hands.” No one pretended he wasn't trying to convince himself.

“Thirty seconds.”

Sikar ( _I am not Kirk, don't even think it, someone might hear_ ) put his hand flat on Spock's back in the comforting spot between the shoulderblades. The healers had taught him it worked on Vulcans of any age. On impulse, he reached over and did the same to Sarek, who registered a blip of astonishment before he, too, relaxed and felt grateful under Sikar's palm.

“Fifteen seconds.” _We've done this several times, sa'mi. It's awful but it's over very quickly._ He tried to focus on the mantra John had suggested when he had been fresh out of the Academy hospital with a hammering head full of chaos. _Peace, be still. Peace, be still_.

“Ten seconds.” The three of them were in a loop, the Vulcans with their lifetime of meditative practice, world locked out; peace, it would be tolerable, peace, it would work, peace, it would be

a Dali painting swirls of color dimmed light becoming taste becoming feeling becoming sound that rent the universe spinning fragments conversations broken worlds screaming fire ice earth water air crushing pressure nothing it was

all right. He waited for his vision to clear and the lurching in his inner ears to stop, and felt the Vulcans do the same, both undamaged. He rolled his weight back to the balls of his feet and got up in his best imitation of their fluid motion. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea, to stand in order to be sure they could, to look around for casualties.

“All teams report,” the captain said crisply. He had to admire Ru's ability to act unruffled, because he knew how long it took the _Enterprise_ crew to crawl back into chairs and not throw up on one another. The effect, Spock had assured him, was much worse for Vulcans, who didn't take well to having reality distorted; he could feel their minds leaning on his to reorient even as their bodies simultaneously leaned on and supported his. He remembered where the anti-nausea point was in their wrists and took one in each hand, being very careful with Sarek's that had been broken too often.

All healers reported no injuries. Sarek added, under his breath, “Yes, that helped.”

“Sikar, you are most useful,” Spock said as he stopped swallowing painfully.

“That's why you always argue with Dr. McCoy about painkillers, isn't it?”

He nodded, still looking a little off-color. “I had to explain to him that dealing with some pain is vastly preferable to feeling disconnected and having so little control. We will encounter that choice.”

“We will make one full orbit before the first insertion,” Ru announced. “Mostly so we can all regain our bearings. Preliminary results, less than one-thousandth of a second off target. We will make the excuse that we need to verify the actual situation with the projection. Team One has approximately thirty-three minutes to get over that. The rest of you check your equipment and most of all drink water. Some of you haven't been in the desert for a long time. Let me refresh your memories of your _kahs-wan_ , except this time there will be soldiers along with the usual plants and animals trying to kill you.”

“Thank you ever so little,” Sikar muttered.

“If you have not been under live fire before, you will not relish the experience when the heavy starts flying and it is, as you saw in the vids. Whatever you say or do may surprise you. Don't take it as an indictment of your character or, if you repress, control. War is not healthy and what you say or do about it may not be either. This is also your final reminder to take enough water for your own use as well as for the wounded. Teams seven, eighteen and twenty-one will not repeat will _not_ have access to potable water on surface. You have an extra slave to carry your containers. Teams nine, ten and fifteen will have ample water available so take extra empty containers and distribute what you can. Twenty-three, you have your extra team member to carry the cloaking device. You _will_ need it operating immediately on arrival. Hostiles will be less than one kilometer from your TZ. Reserve teams twenty-six, twenty-seven and twenty-eight, emergency response as agreed. Team One, your special arrangements are made, sa'mi?”

“Yes,” Solkar said to the comm, then more quietly to the rest of them: “Mestral's carrying what I could get myself in trouble with and he'll hand me only what I need only when I need it.”

“And if he gives Mestral any grief,” added Lhairre, “I'll flatten him.”

Solkar's mouth twitched to hint a smile. “ _Elek!_ ” _As if_. Team One laid out their bags on the table, making the last check on the kits that masqueraded as desert packs. Watching them make the calm survey gave Kirk some hope that he would be able to do the same.

Mestral, Solkar and Lhairre packed away their materials, slung on the kits and went to stand on the transporter pad. “Teams One and Two, insertion point approaching. Ready?”

“Ready all.” They disappeared.

“Team Three and Four, thirty seconds.” They were at the pad and prepared. “Five and Six.” They, too, went off. “Seven and Eight.” They went as the last of the battlefield passed out of transporter range. Kirk ( _Sikar, Sikar, remember, down there no one is named Kirk_ ) laid out their packs, checked one more time, rolled them again. They slung them diagonally across their backs and went to watch the formerly ordinary sight of T'Khasi turning below them in a way it never would again. Sarek pointed out familiar landmarks as they spun into night, the stony heights of Gol, the all but burnt-dry ocean that divided the two most frequently hostile nations, the peaceful high mountains with farms tucked away where glaciers had once been. He did not mention the triangle of battlefield, the flickering muzzle flashes from the Golic artillery pounding the lines near ShiKahr or the brighter flares from Kiri air-dropped bombing runs pummeling the main roads in the Forge.

The far side of the planet was already bone-dry and not heavily settled; it was in full sunlight, while the other side was completely dark with T'Kuht at apogee. Before long, they completed the full orbit and saw the great glowing spike of Seleya turning to meet them as the ship rounded into planetary night. “Teams Nine and Ten.” They assumed their positions, and in a gentle stirring of electrons they feathered onto the planet that was no more but would always be.


	7. Home Sweet Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I tried to keep this from being gross. My apologies if I have failed at that. Nobody is having fun in this chapter,least of all Sarek and Spock.

Behind the familiar kaya bushes by the gate, the first sensation was heat, even at night, and thin, throat-parching air screaming by from the last flash of a bomb. Smoke and fine red sand were so thick he saw only indistinctly at first, mostly by firelight. A troop carrier was burning and another was shoving it out of the bomb-blasted road in a cloud of thick acrid fumes.

As he solidified, next came noise: distant volcanic thunder; running feet; outgoing artillery; incoming aircraft, and the constant bang and rattle of damaged vehicles dropping parts as they moved. The fort's antiaircraft batteries rattled continually as more dive bombers skipped overhead and plowed up the street. Helicopter-like tri-jet craft roared down long enough for medics to leave wounded or officers to jump out. Commanders yelled at soldiers, soldiers yelled at one another, and everyone yelled at slaves. In the near-panic, no one watched where they were going or paid attention to other vehicles or pedestrians, so shouting and swearing were a constant rumble with occasional louder barks.

With Sikar's first breath came the smell. Everything that could come out of a machine or a body had, amid the sulfur bite of gunsmoke and volcanic ash. The night helped; he knew there was blood in the familiar street in front of D'H'Riset, but couldn't see it. They had dropped in behind the outer wall to avoid sentries, but the fortress' gate was untended, testament to the chaos that had beset the army on two fronts a hundred and fifty kilometers apart. Where the big house would be centuries hence was a staging area littered with broken vehicles, mechanics scrambling among them, supply clerks throwing boxes onto whatever would still run, casualty clearance stacking bodies on a flatbed for cremation at the desert's edge and wounded wandering in too dazed to notice the other traffic. He had always heard that wars all looked alike; this one resembled all the others he'd known, but seemed more obscene for being in Sarek's front yard.

No one paid attention to more black-clad figures rushing in. Whether by his own psi or that of his Vulcans, he felt the suffering that surrounded them and the brittle metal-flavored fear from those who rushed from one shadow to another. No one had anticipated the collapse of the line in the mountains or the vicious night of airstrikes followed by an infantry attack from Kir that threatened to take out the entire nation. On this night, the team had agreed, Sikar would be subservient in his coarse slave's dress and speak as seldom as possible until he was among the very weak wounded, because this place belonged to tall dark ShiKahri with shattered hearts and nerves. Anyone else might be shot on sight, even a Syrannite slave helping to carry supplies.

His team wove across the courtyard to the open doors of the fort's south keep. Sarek and Spock knew every twist of the passageways that wound down into barely lit dark. Heads low, moving silently, scanning with ears and minds as much as with instruments, they hustled in front of him, trusting him to keep up in the meter-wide corridors.

When they stopped for a flurry of foot traffic, a man's howl erupted from a chamber to one side. Sarek paused, consulted his dataset, shook his head almost imperceptibly. It seemed wrong to go on, but hadn't they done it before when that was protocol? The wail became words. “Don't take her away, please don't. She'll be so angry. You're a healer. Help her!”

The voice was tired and kind. “She does not live, friend. It was too severe. Even had she kept breathing, her mind was gone. Look your last on her, but understand.”

There were no more words from the unseen man, only panicked screams until there was a muffled thud. “I couldn't have him doing that all night,” the same weary voice said. Clearance aides appeared with a stretcher and shortly carried out an older, high-ranking woman's body. They were followed by two distraught aides-de-camp, one with a twisted arm half-wearing a spattered, ill-fitting general's uniform jacket that likely belonged to the dead woman.

Even a casual glance guaranteed the medic was right about the dead woman's wound. The voice belonged to a graceful old healer who walked to the door after her aide. “Not his fault he lived. She was taller and the shell missed him. He's very dutiful because of that forced bond. He and her aides, no one else would be sorry, and they're still in shock and afraid of her. Poor child, they've lost so many they put her in charge now. I suppose the Gols or the Kiri will kill her when they get here. Take him, I don't know where, but don't leave him here in the way.”

They had to wait in the crowded hallway until another aide carried the unconscious slave out over his shoulder. In the meantime, Sarek went to the fountain in the rock wall, bent his head to the trickling water and drank deeply, then filled a sample bottle and stowed it in his pocket before he began to fill the collapsible containers they had brought. Spock did the same. The healer in stained fatigues continued to stand in the doorway of her ward, not processing what was in front of her until her eyes happened to focus on the insignia on Sarek's shoulder. “Looking for your Shanai Guards black tags? End of that hallway. I don't think any can be saved or many can be helped.”

Spock had the right words. “We escaped but it was a near thing with a long delay. Did our other healers already see to them?”

The medic's face twisted in a reflection of the battle. “The medics who made it here are down the hall dying with the rest. You _are_ the healers.”

As the street was full of every battlefield, so the rooms along the halls were filled with the dropped equipment and moaning patients, barked orders and frantic questions of every field hospital Sikar had ever seen in his Kirk-life, magnified by swimming blurs of emotion and pain that burst from the doorways. The end of the hallway should have been a storeroom. Its contents had been moved to the walls on either side of the door to make room for what was left of the warriors.

Sikar felt the visceral impact of the wall to wall wounded, but they had trained for the smell, the dark, the rows of bundled figures on the floor or tables or anywhere they would fit. It was no worse than the _Enterprise's_ crowded sickbay after the Loss, only darker with just the emergency lighting. Without having to look to Spock, he agreed: _triage that side, I'll take this one, Father will treat those who can live._ The first patient he checked was a young woman, unconscious, her broken back and internal injuries noted. A drained intravenous bag hung on the wall behind her. He looked on the shelves and found another to replace it. Yes, the file said; otherwise, bits of her bones would be found scattered nearby in a few hundred years. The only change from her lack of death would be a sehlat's need to walk a little further for dinner. Sarek moved in to check her airway and stabilize her breathing with medication as well as his hands on her lower ribs. He looked up. “Two lives, in this case.”

Sikar held out a hand, felt the hard-edged powerful extra aura. Girl. “With those injuries?”

“The small one is a warrior adept. Both will almost certainly live.”

The frail older man next to her, her father by the records, was beyond help from collapsed lungs and a damaged heart. _If we could have come earlier!--but we'd have had to be out in the light._ Impossibly lucid, the man smiled at Sarek's words, murmured “Yes,” reached to his daughter with his last strength, then stopped breathing. Sikar wasn't sure how to feel, so he chose not to feel anything, folded the man's arms neatly, straightened his clothing and went on. By that point in the battle, history said five hundred out of a thousand Shanai Guards had been alive to reach the fort. Over a hundred of those were laid out in the regiment's too-small black tag room, none expected to leave alive.

So many bodies in too small a space magnified the heat and overlaid it with a ghastly humidity that clearly bothered the Vulcans almost as much as it did him. He reminded himself to drink water every time he went to the end of a row. When he realized Spock was actually sweating, he nudged him with a water pack as well. Spock looked confused for a moment, then realized he was dehydrating. “Do continue to remind me,” he said as he went on to his next assignment. He would have done the same for Sarek, but the elder was too busy, and he wasn't sure how far to push the idea.

The casualty clearance aides followed no real pattern. They had been working nonstop for two days and would be well into the third before help came from the distant reserves. Sikar knew from Tarsus 4 that they were no longer able to see faces or detail. How many had they already carried away to the next morning's crematory pyre, hundreds, a thousand? That was good; the aides would come back to an empty room, pick up the paperwork and assume their work was done.

Sarek found the regiment's chief healer where he had collapsed over a patient and had Sikar help him lay the man in the corner for the time being. Slowly dying but not urgent, he was well within Sikar's skills for the moment; the database seemed confused by his identification but gave him a green light, so they did enough to keep him comfortable and alive. That done, the chief healer walked the lines and signed his forefather's name to death certificates as fast as he could page to the proper spot. The legend of how the terribly wounded man had worked tirelessly for hours through the night before succumbing now made much more sense.

The three did not stop moving from patient to patient and barely spoke to one another. The aides returned several times to remove those they took to the doorway. The crowd thinned until they had only twenty-one patients left, most unconscious from their injuries or sleeping once the worst of their pain was managed. He stopped for a drink. “Please, water,” one of the few who could speak whispered.

Sikar held a pack for her. She was riddled with shrapnel through both legs and her chest and had lost an arm below the elbow. The regiment's healer—its other, Sikar realized, noticing the badge on the coat that was now her blanket--had bandaged it well, but in her haze of pain and shock, knowing people were dying and she could not help, she lay waiting to die herself. Sarek moved to her silently and began to pass his hands above her wounds. “Don't bother. I'm too far gone, clansman. You are familiar, but not. Why have I not seen you before?”

“It's a long story. We can repair your injuries, but you'd never see Shanai again.”

Her half-chortle was bitter. “It would be too soon.” Her whole demeanor reminded him painfully of Bones. “I already told you, I'm dying. Go tend the others who can live.”

“We have. It looks as if the two of you did very good work while you could.” Sarek had to concentrate for a moment to get rid of a red spike from her knee that was so bright Sikar could see it. “Sikar. Exert a steady pull, so, and now turn slightly that way.--If you stay here, you are correct, you will not live. When we are, you would, as would nearly all of the others who remain.”

She closed her eyes with a sigh of relief when the knee popped back into line and the spike dulled to a small rounded blur. “Why would I want to? A one-handed healer isn't much use.”

“Many things are possible when I live. Terrible things have happened on T'Khasi again, and even though it is under control and we can handle your casualties now, there is still much need of people, especially young women free to marry and wanting children.”

“As if that could happen for me now. Quite a catch I am, eh?”

“It would be a few months before you could take up your new life.”

She eyed his hands as they smoothed the flickering pain-spiked aural edges around the sheared bones of her arm. “A prosthetic won't do me much good for this, now will it?”

“That will not be necessary. We can restore it now.”

“Ah. I'm almost gone and seeing things, you're... _vai_...but no wings...sky-man.”

“I am far from _vai_. As for sky-man, I have been up there, but I lived...will live here at D'H'Riset for almost a hundred years until T'Khasi falls apart. Will you come with us?”

“Why not? You're my best fever dream. You make as much sense as this war.”

“We are at peace one with another in my time. One of my grandfathers is a farmer from near Syran, the other is ShiKahri and they are _t'hy'la_. No one thinks anything of it. Can you live in peace?”

“Oh, come on now.” She moved her right arm to read him as he leaned over her. “Well! You really are--Clan Kril'es, isn't it? Some of the few good ones. You're a great hallucination to have as I'm throwing down this dusty world. Syrannites and us, together. Next you'll tell me the Kiri and the Assassins of Gol can live right in the same town. Peace? Yes. All I can get.”

“Then sleep. You know how this works. I'm giving you this much because you'll be in surgery in roughly seventy-four minutes.” He showed her the syringe, emptied it into the tubing that led into her neck and waited with her. “You will be pleasantly surprised when you wake.”

Amusement and relief were in her heavy eyes. “I'd be pleasantly surprised were I to wake.”

“You will. Treasure,” he whispered as the pain ebbed and she fell asleep, “you are a gift,” and adjusted the coat over her to keep her warm. Sikar knew her consent gave them a young fertile woman, as well as a fully trained healer who could be brought up to speed quickly and be useful in the course of what could be a long life. He didn't imagine that was what Sarek meant.

“Shel-hassu.” Spock called him to a patient the program said was unlikely to survive. Sikar checked the archaic-looking dataset. The case _was_ Spock.

It shouldn't have been a surprise. The name was common in the clan, and of course he would look vaguely like them, even though he was from before the previous near-extinction. He was nineteen, by his insignia a cook, and he had living relatives, so he wasn't a priority target.

And he looked like teenaged Spock, and there was nothing left to do for him.

Sikar looked at the record. Spock had been thrown from a vehicle that ran into a bomb crater. He was found hours later, neck broken. Even common sense said his strong young body was driven to survive at a low level without help from his brain. All three scanned him again, all three tried to find a response where there could be none, then even that vestigial whisper of heartbeat ceased. Sarek used all of his newfound knowledge. They knew they were being ridiculous even to make the attempt. Still, they couldn't stop until Sarek sat back on his heels and shook his head.

“No katra,” Spock who was still alive agreed. “It is with his bondmate. He is already gone.”

Sarek signed the form in the proper place with the time of death on it. He put the information on a sample container, uncovered the young man's body and retrieved the requisite tissue sample. Sikar put it away for him. Sarek disinfected his hands, started to stand up and went back to his knees with a slam, shaking with such violence that his teeth rattled. Breathing hard, glassy-eyed, he slapped his open palms to the dirt floor and bowed his head, digging in with his fingers until the pumice crackled.

It took several minutes for the ripping electrical jolt to pass off into the soil, leaving streaks of glass behind. As soon as the grounding took effect and his shaking eased, Spock-who-was-still-alive lifted him to his feet. “Sikar, tend these. We have seventeen minutes. We are going outside, shel-hassu.”

“I signed your death certificate,” Sarek croaked, still staring off into space.

“I am here and alive. We are going outside.”

“I signed hers at the embassy.” His carefully modulated voice had gone raw and his blank eyes gave no sign that he understood anything he was seeing.

“We are going outside and you need water.” Spock-who-was-still-miraculously-alive all but marched his father up the hallway. His quick glance back at Sikar was pure fear.

Water? _Or an emergency pickup_ , Sikar thought, but the ship would be in range only when their scheduled transport happened. Seventeen minutes? Surely he had meant they had been working that long...but when he checked the dataset, it had been well over seven hours. In seventeen minutes, the ship would query pickup and they would leave.

He walked the lines of outbound patients, making sure no one had any new issues and all were sedated enough not to hurt from the transporter when they would have no idea how to brace for it. The young woman and baby needed more fluids, so he replaced the bag again and did the same for several others who were running short. The strong little aura was not disturbed. Beside her, the wounded woman healer slept soundly.

The other healer was, incredibly, still breathing well on his own. There were supplies, there was time; he tried to feel how the broken back was pinching the lungs so he could adjust the man's position and brace him before transport. There was nothing more to do for the belly wound except a good dressing. The database still labeled him acceptable.

Could he ask? He tried, but the buried consciousness was too far from him. It seemed wrong to hope they could fix him but deprive him of family, but nothing that was wrong with him would be repairable in the aftermath of the battle—hadn't been; after the Battle of Seleya, the man was a legend and a medical kit in a museum. He tried to think _I am here to help you_ and got a distant, confused thanks. Sarek or Spock might have gotten through, given time. He had to guess.

He pulled the healer's blanket over to the others. All were lined up properly for the beam to retrieve them in groups. The soft volcanic rock overhead would not be a problem; both Sarek and Spock had assured him they had been transported through it on numerous occasions with older equipment. “Any more pickups?” one of the clearance aides asked, coming to the doorway as if he never wanted to set foot in any of the rooms again.

“Only this one.” He led the man to the young Spock.

“A shame,” the aide sighed, and picked up the lean body that had no doubt been full of life that morning. “Shall I come back in an hour or two?”

“It may not be needed. We have other kinsmen coming to help who may want to take away their own.” The aide nodded with a sense of relief; doubtless that meant he could snatch an hour or two of sleep and a drink of water. He trundled the body of S'chn T'gai Spock up the corridor.

Minutes passed; Sikar was alone with the quiet group in their blankets. Five minutes to go. Four. Three. The comm pinged him, and he sent the quick click that was the reply, followed by the number of patients. Two minutes. One. The first group of patients lifted away.

Spock-who-was-alive and Sarek returned just as the second group left. “About time,” Sikar muttered, and before either could answer the beam swept them up as well.


	8. Primary Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First they rescued and now they take care of the rescue teams.

Whether it meant laying out the dying for easier sorting and pickup or taking in the living in the most advantageous manner, Vulcans clung to efficiency like a religious creed. Within five minutes of their arrival aboard ship, every patient was in charge of at least one nurse, two dozen surgeons were at work and the tissue samples were being catalogued and placed in the main stasis locker. The teams moved through decon showers, dropped their replica uniforms in the refreshers and picked up clean streetwear, after which the three reserve healers moved in to check everyone.

That was a good idea, because all of the primary healers looked as bad as the wounded they had brought in. The speed of events had led most of them to forget their own physical needs in favor of the patients', which meant they were not only dried out from the night in the heat but also mentally fried. Once released, most of the primaries went off to hide. Solkar piled himself into a corner of the cargo bay with Mestral trying not to be obvious about guarding him. Lhairre came over to a limp Sarek pouring himself onto a crate and nonchalantly began to rub his back. “It appears your twenty will survive. Rather, your twenty-one. Our fifteen are fourteen now, but twelve were so critical it's still a victory.”

Sikar wasn't sure how long Sarek had known the big engineer, but his relief at Lhairre's back rub, and his company, was obvious. “That you are out of there and well is my victory. My sister might seriously injure me if you weren't.” Sarek retrieved the bottle from his pocket and took out the marker. His hands barely shook as he made a note on the label. “From the spring at the fort. On my last day, when I ask for water.”

“Understood,” Spock said. “I brought some for the others as well.” He handed over the small bottles so they, too, could be properly labeled, and Lhairre nodded in appreciation at his own.

Perhaps recharged by Lhairre's proximity, Sarek dragged together some hidden reserve and sat on the floor beside his grandfathers, talking to the wall. “Tonight will not be as stressful. The large groups will be gone and only stragglers remain. The Forge at night will not be as heavily populated.” Sikar realized an empath in a room full of critically ill people doubtless had too much noise to discern much, while the open territory of several square miles might be much easier to deal with despite the difficulty of gathering those to be moved.

Before he could voice it, Spock nodded. “You won't have to bury me again.”

Sarek raised an eyebrow. “At one time, it might have been an attractive prospect.”

“Surely it will be again. We have not yet begun to fight.”

He thought about going to the cargo bay where the wounded were, but teams were supposed to stay away from the wards during their time off to avoid burning out the healers, as if that hadn't happened already. Lhairre went off and returned with regular water bottles. “Drink that. You too. And especially you.” He put a bottle in John's hand while he stared blankly at the viewport, then handed one to Nick. “You. And you.”

“She was barely twenty,” John spoke for the first time. “I really thought we could save her.”

Ah, so it hadn't only been their team. A twenty-year-old Vulcan was still a child even if she'd passed her kahs-wan at seven. “Went to war as her mother's aide,” Nick said. “They looked a lot alike. I thought we might save the mother, but she was so beside herself she just let go.”

Sikar opened the water bottle for John and held it for him. “How many did you find?”

“Nearly two hundred jammed into the cave across the street from you behind the supply depot. Most were dead when we got there. The fifty left somewhat alive were critical. The Kiri snipers took all of their medics out first thing. There was no well-trained help, their comrades did what they could, and that was all until we got there. Fourteen only. To have had more, to have been able to do better...”

“You ain't going there,” Nick whispered fiercely, lacing his fingers through John's and pouring strength into him. “Fourteen is more than we had. Fourteen is what we were meant to get.”

“I signed Spock's death certificate,” Sarek said to the wall. “He died in our storeroom.”

That got attention, even if it was mostly mental gasps. “To be fair,” Sikar interjected, “he was brain-dead when we found him. That didn't help.”

Spock leaned back against him without caring whether anyone saw and nodded faint shocky agreement. “It was _interesting_ to see my own name on the form.”

“Add to the six billion, three hundred and thirty-five million, seven hundred thousand eight hundred and twenty-one certificates I batch-signed electronically, eighty-seven acts of hand-signed forgery in S'chn T'gai Sa'awek's name. He appears to be a remarkable medic.”

John tried to swallow more water. “If you signed for a remarkable medic, it's not forgery.”

Sarek avoided the compliment. “Is there news of him or their other healer, T'Ekhes?”

Lhairre nodded. “He took the repairs well for a man already in profound kidney failure before he was shot. He's been sick for some time but reported to the unit when he was called in spite of that. Her legs have been repaired. The arm regeneration is started. I knew you'd ask about her.”

“He was dying, she had one hand, and they still managed more than most ever will. Two foremothers and a forefather were rescued by one or the other of them, and of course, he _was_ one of the forefathers and saved his own daughter, from whom we descend.” Sarek's eyes seemed to be focusing again. “She would be in hiding on the north end of the fort.”

“I know just where,” John agreed. “They would hide the wounded who could live in the water room around the other spring. We won't need to go there. Doubtless she knew he was dying.”

“It was still disturbing,” Nick said at length. They all looked at him. “I've always thought of your side as unconquerable madmen. You were very nearly footnotes.”

“Last night,” John agreed, “that sense of astonishment that it could happen, the commanding general dead, her aide who was barely more than a girl having to step up, the rout and the losses and...we've known all of that lately, haven't we?”

“And yet,” Spock added, “they survive in a very real sense in us. So we will one day.”

Stunned silence followed until Nick looked up at him with shining eyes. “Damn, kid.”

John elbowed him lightly. “Hey. Maybe we _don't_ make junk.”

Sikar had to say it. “Maybe they didn't either.”

It might have been his imagination that the healers straightened ever so slightly. “We can do this,” Sarek said. “Tonight will not be like last.”

“Anyone who survived the day in the desert may live if we can get to them,” John agreed. “Last night was salvage, the most critical. Tonight I anticipate a great need for water, wound cleaning, pain control and antibiotics, and bringing in only those who are clinging to life in an unlikely way.”

“Many battle memoirs speak of help from strangers. Surak himself reported intervention. The assumption has been that the military situation was confused and night prevented identification beyond a simple recognition of unit badges.”

“In other words,” Sikar tried to fathom it, “we're _supposed_ to be there taking care of them so the survivors drive the Kiri back to the Salt Marsh. This has always made my head hurt.”

“The bodies were supposed to disappear. People thought some were missing from the cremation piles.” Nick patted his back as he stood up andshifted into English. “Confused? Now bounce in and out of the freezer a bunch and be dead like John a few times instead of once, and you'll know why we're so screwy.” He reached down to John and nudged Sarek. “You both need to crawl off to bed.”

“I should meditate,” Sarek said.

“No, sa'fu'li, you should _sleep_ , and yes, there's a difference. At least you look less dehydrated than a prune now. As for this one...” He hauled John's arm over his shoulders and dragged him off toward a cabin in a way so determined a bulkhead might not have stopped him.

Sarek continued to fiddle with the disguised dataset. “I am changing this to simplify...we don't need all of that in the field. Immediate display speed is vital. There. One button basics. Green, the person should be brought forward. Yellow, treat and return. Red, they won't live and should be left for their families. We can look for family retrievals after we get the right ones.” He sent the change off across the net for comment and amendment, then looked up before either Sikar or Spock could try to drag him to bed. “I know. Come with me, both. No dreams for us.”

The staterooms on the ship were small, and Sikar didn't bother to undress before he climbed to the single top bunk, leaving the wider bottom one to father and son. Once he was lying down, unwelcome images began to pepper his mind. When they first met, John had taught him what to do about that. _Peace, be still._ They did not belong to where and when he was. _Peace, be still_...Tarsus 4 was not now. Frank was not now. None of the wars he had seen since were now. Last night was not now. _Peace, be still_. Sleep came much more easily than he had expected.

“Sikar.” Were the words in his head or outside? He swam out of sleep toward Spock's voice, expecting an emergency. “Ru has mid-meal ready. We tend to forget the needs of humans. Or our human halves. Or our Vulcan selves.”

Sarek was still sleeping on the bottom bunk, twitching in exhaustion. “And him?”

“We may as well wake him. That isn't restful and may be worse because of hunger.” His silent call to Sarek brought him out of wherever he had been trapped. “Mid-meal, sa'mi.”

Air Galactica crews tended to eat a lot of Romulan dishes, and none of the healers minded the brighter, more flavorful food. The captain joined them. “We went for substantial instead of fancy. That's father-in-law's soup recipe.”

“Merik has always been a good cook,” Sarek remarked. “Also, food was a good idea.”

“Going back to sleep with something on your stomach is bound to be better than not and you'll have time to digest properly before you go back. Wish I could come down there with you all.”

Spock shook his head. “Too valuable, Ruven.”

“Value is relative, and I have valuable relatives I'd like to protect. Besides the unconceived ones,” he added. “Aunt Admiral is doubtless going out of her mind with Lhairre here and her not being able to come with us. She assembled a lot of the public service announcements that went out right after va'Pak for those resettling on Earth. These retrievals will be familiar with video. Even for unstressed people, one-minute explanations of one topic at a time are easier to deal with than hours of lectures.”

“Most will go to New Vulcan, won't they?”

Ru nodded until he could swallow his bite of biscuit. “Most, as soon as they can. Our medical facilities there are getting up to speed thanks to my wife, but there will still be a lot who have extensive rehab or regen. Those need Kadur Memorial at Carbon Creek, but with significant culture shock.”

“Memorial isn't a bad choice,” Sarek said. “These people have not yet heard Surak's thoughts. The large _k'turr_ community at Carbon Creek may be very useful.”

Spock nearly choked. “That was unexpected from you, Father.”

“Times change,” Sarek said slowly. “I had not considered the possibility of useful elements in many philosophies. She would no doubt be gloating at this moment. I wish she were.”

Sikar knew. “The man last night?” He nodded, still looking down. “Broken bond syndrome?”

“Just so. I wished to intervene for him, but could not, considering the circumstances. Mestral understands, Solkar knows...the damage is not as profound with a human, but believe me, it is still most present.” He brought his head up, renewing the steel within by some alchemy. “The dead woman, when we first went in, was General T'Khaya.”

It made sense; she would have been brought to the fortress and the chief healer would have been called to the case. Spock conceded the point. “Her bondmate and aides were devastated, but fearful. I was surprised by the healer's reaction. Histories paint an entirely different picture.”

“Indeed. While the rest of what we saw corresponds to the surviving imagery, it appears she was not universally respected among the ShiKahri after all.” Sarek reached for a piece of fruit. “What you saw is never spoken of in public now and was considered disgusting even then. She forced a bond so he would be seriously injured were it severed, as indeed he was. The currents which stir time are more complex than any of us suspect. I begin to wonder how what we have already seen is intended to affect our work tonight.”

They went back to bed and rose at Ru's call to the teams. Fully rested, if not fully decompressed from the night before, Sikar ( _there is no Kirk here, you are Sikar_ ) laid out the supply pack in the cargo bay and replaced all of the used items while Spock picked up what they would need for the night. The primary healers were in a meeting, attempting to patch one another's remaining damage like a bunch of mechanics mutually lamenting over banged-up vehicles. “This most concerns me.” Spock held up a start card. His expression could only be described as martyred. “He'll want to drive.”

“I know he has a, um, fearless reputation as a pilot.” He managed to keep a straight face saying that to Spock while recalling the vision of that speedometer and the adrenaline rush of flying through the mountains. “Is he better with land vehicles?”

“No. He had a hoverbike on Vulcan. According to Mother, on the day he got it, he took it across the Forge wide open to dispose of alleged contaminants in the newly manufactured engine. The police might have given him a ticket had they been able to catch up.”

“I don't think a medic buggy is likely to give him many opportunities.” The vehicle they would use to search the Forge was a three-wheeled jeep, fat-tired and geared for rough ground, driver in front, two seats behind him, with room for two or three narrow stretchers to the sides and on the back.

“He got up before us and adjusted it in ways that will doubtless prove unpleasant.” Spock gathered two huge containers of water to stow in the side compartments. Sikar added a case of fruit chips and a large box of emergency ration bars. “We'll be dropped a kilometer from the nearest contact to prevent anyone from witnessing the larger transporter beam.”

Their chief medic arrived, looking downright smug for a change. He might not have been certain about his repair skills on living beings, but when it came to vehicles he was beyond confident. Sarek stowed his pack in the compartment meant for it and added still more water packs and bandages. “There should be enough brush to hide us initially.”

Even for men used to firefights, “should” and “initially” were depressing terms. He could feel Spock's grudging acceptance. What came from Sarek was disconcerting. The man was looking forward to it. _The rush_ , he thought, and felt Spock's agreement. _It's how he can_ _feel anything_.

_I believe he has reached the point where Mother would say he 'doesn't give a shit.' Perhaps that relates to the natural reaction to combat in those who do retain an urge for self-preservation._

_I hope Solkar's not quite as stoked. At this rate we'll need one to patch up the other._

While they waited, Sikar went to the upper bay where the hospital was established and checked on their patients. Most were asleep, some on cold protocol and life support to protect injured brains, some from exhaustion and shock at the new environment. All were still alive, the unborn baby still very much so. Her delirious mother alternated between calling out a man's name and giving increasingly angry and desperate orders to a company that was trying to break and run. Sikar's respectful “Ha, khart-lan” calmed her. The ancient healer tending her was faintly surprised. “I'm a Starfleet officer,” he explained. “Answering 'yes, sir' would work on me.”

“Her husband has a green light. Should we find him, it would be most beneficial in resolving her issues. She speaks of the Shanai Road at Low Springs. Your team goes there tonight, correct?”

“Yes, and we'll alert the others in that sector. Her condition is stable?”

“Her survival is almost certain. Also, the healers you brought in are progressing well, although it will be a long and difficult recovery for both. It may be half a year or more before she walks again. Her arm should regenerate within a month, but full telepathic sensation in her hand may not return for much of a year. His kidneys must be replaced as soon as possible. The _Seleya_ has the proper facilities.”

“I suppose they can use the time off to study new techniques and learn updated instruments.”

The healer gave him an astonished look. “Indeed. You...oh. You are in much the same situation at the moment, with your ship being refitted. You use the time to learn new skills which may serve you well. Most perceptive of you, Sikar.”

He went back to the team. Checking and rechecking the vehicle and gear, they watched the others go off. “Team nine,” Ru called, and they drove onto the platform to drop into the Forge.

 


	9. Slight Miscalculations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A general, a slave, a terrified science fiction author, a running firefight and a baby...things get messy and complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure the line between modern Golic Vulcan and modern Romulan would have been blurry back then, so "rekkhai" has to do for the general.

The broiling night air was screaming. That had not been part of their simulations, which had blandly mentioned “some action” on the broad, mostly flat main road between the cities of Shanai in the Forge and ShiKahr at the foot of the mountains. The careful selection of a beam-down spot was unnecessary, because any transporter beam would have gone unnoticed between the howling artillery and the shower of bombs dropped from diving aircraft.

Sarek took off from behind the brush at what must have been the vehicle's new top speed, not a pace recommended for survival. Sikar ducked, wishing he could jam his entire body into his helmet. He snatched the ballistic blanket Spock had tossed in as an afterthought and flung it across the back seat where Spock gladly shared it. They were strapped in, which helped them stay in the buggy but kept them from jumping sideways as much as they wanted to. Shrapnel rattled off the blanket, which did its job as advertised by letting the small bits slide off and the bigger ones bounce. Meanwhile, the ShiKahri artillery with its distinctive yowl continually fell short of its intended target even as the deeper-voiced, retreating Kiri guns pitched random rounds at them.

Sarek sailed through metal hail, caught air several times when they ramped craters, and zigzagged to avoid disabled vehicles in the roadway. Sikar went from thinking _I don't think I could drive like that_ to _Spock couldn't either_ to _he's going to kill us all and do I actually care?_ All around them a torrent of fast-moving units seemed to be advancing from D'H'Riset while the wounded were trying to drag themselves back there.

While the warring nations had at each other over their heads, Mount Seleya got into the act with small earthquakes and a few lava bombs burped into the air. Ash and small rocks peppered the Forge while manmade projectiles thudded, whizzed and crunched around them from both directions. A plane screamed by fifty feet off the deck and unloaded its racks on the road, hitting the afterburners as the last bomb fell and a fraction before any of them exploded. “Hm. Home indeed,” Spock remarked as he clung to the vehicle.

“Not one of the better places to visit and I'm not sure I'd want to live here.”

“On the contrary, I used to come out here for weeks when there was no school. Mother was understanding, Father was not. He expressed concern that I was too young to be spending extended periods alone. One not Vulcan might be called 'panic-stricken.' Grandfather Skon says Sarek used to do the same thing because the Forge was quiet.”

“Even the volcano?”

“No, Seleya always erupted when the twin planet was in the right, or wrong, position. Most of the time there was minimal lava flow and the ash helped shade the desert.”

“So it was hotter than hell, the air was becoming increasingly thin, the dust was toxic to a lot of Vulcans and most humans because of the high iron content, there was one-tenth of the original cropland left so most food had to be grown in stack farms or imported, and most of the Fire Plains and the boiled-off ocean literally glowed in the dark from residual radiation, but everyone misses T'Khasi.”

“Accurately assessed. The people are the greatest loss, but we are all touched by our memories of the planet. Perhaps it is battlefield nostalgia.”

Sikar ducked a rock and a shell fragment. “Or maybe we're all nuts.”

Their first stop was easy. A knot of exhausted soldiers cut off from their unit in the retreat had struggled on until one by one they found the relative shade of a few bushes and a boulder and holed up until twilight. All they wanted was water and assurance that their army was coming back, but when the team offered food as well, multiple eyes lit up. Yellow light, leave them, the program said, so they did. At the same stop, just across the road and dug in behind a broken wall, they found two more yellows, a man with a broken arm who needed a splint while he waited for his people and a woman whose wound from two days before needed tending, but who felt much better with water, pain spray and a clean dressing. Solkar had been right; as they careened from one likely hiding place to another, most of those they found were strong enough to survive, but desperately glad for water and fruit, pain pills, bandages and ration bars. The team conveniently forgot to notice which were Kiri and Syrannite, now in danger of capture as the ShiKahri forces regained their ancestral land, and the wounded, overheated and ill just as conveniently forgot to shoot at them. Several dozen people went off toward home greatly relieved, and Sikar began to think he knew a little about first aid.

That was when the dive-bomber attacked.

Sarek nearly rolled the jeep in a more than ninety-degree turn from the main road into a small-town alley to get out of the way. A stone two-story roadside building took most of the hit, scattering rocks at them as they all ducked. The dataset lit up with a Christmas tree of lights, red, yellow and green. Bombs were still going off when a woman officer in a smoldering rolled jeep bailed out roaring into her comm device: “You're two klicks short! Back off, you just hit my khrykah' HQ!”

Without waiting for the answer, and paying no attention to her own obvious damages, she dove under the vehicle to pull out a badly wounded woman and a young man who looked unconscious. The broken building was on fire. Soldiers poured out of the doors or jumped from upstairs windows, throwing on gear and running for vehicles in the road out front. The next wave of bombers and the unseen artillery must have adjusted their aim, because the next wave of giant shells screamed far beyond them. The road had taken so many hits there was barely room for their jeep to maneuver around the craters. Two big personnel carriers had been hit and tossed around with their crews inside.

He didn't try to remember what they did for the next few hours; they ran, a lot, and drove, a lot, to collect people in every imaginable and unimaginable state of disrepair. Too many were red lights. A few were yellows who needed rides to regimental aid stations. Their many greens were a problem for a few minutes, but Sarek knew of a nearby cave whose resident le-matya was out hunting, and they stowed people there as fast as they could. There was water, cooler air, and most of all enough rock overhead to deflect return shelling from the retreating army as they fired on the run.

One young soldier couldn't walk with his shattered hip, but had been able to hitch along on the ground once he found a mechanic's creeper. He brought himself to the cave and volunteered to help while the healers went hunting. Sikar explained, once he saw the man's green light, and he snorted “I'll never see this place again? Sign me up!”

He looked at the man's profile. His name seemed familiar. “Weren't you bonded?”

“Until the day before yesterday.” He tried to move the wrong way, gasped and wiped his face on his sleeve. “ _Fvadt_ , that hurts, but not as much as some of these. My parents are gone, my mother-in-law was killed in the first bombing. My father-in-law, my wife and I were in one of the carriers that got hit and burned along the road near Shanai. He was cut up terribly and she kept trying to stop the retreat but her troops weren't worth her. They dragged them off to the Fortress, didn't see me, I got to spend the night on the sand instead of being useful watching my last relatives die.”

“I regret to inform you, he did,” Sarek said. “She, however...she's where we'd like to take you.”

“You cannot be serious. Her legs were useless and she was bleeding inside.”

“In this time, neither of you would live. I know you understand that. Where we're going, it was difficult to repair her injuries, but it's been done and she will recover.”

“We wanted to name our little girl Svai,” he sighed, lying back against a rock. “Someone should know she had a name. I'm sorry, that's all I have in me. I know you need to go get the others.”

Svai, those beautiful red flowers. Why did Sarek wince so? “You can tell the staff so they can put it on their chart. She was doing very well three hours ago. Impressive aura for such a young child.”

The wonder in the man's eyes was like some terrible hunger. “Alive?...Alive? Both of them? I know my father-in-law...poor Kai, I knew he couldn't live, but...but both?”

“Yes. He knew they would, as well.”

Sarek went on to the others, then walked outside, leaving Sikar with him. “Now can I give you something for the pain? In a few hours you can be with them.”

“I don't know why I believe you, but I do believe.” The painkiller worked fast; he could see the relief wash down from the line. “This place, this sha-ka-ree of yours. What's it like?”

“I wouldn't call it Heaven. People are still people, terrible things still happen, war is still war, but there's a lot less of it for ordinary people, soldiers and sailors are volunteers and there aren't that many of us, and life is mostly, not always, easier. We'll have orientation on the way so you'll know what to expect.” He was in no immediate danger. A quick round revealed the same of the others; the one with a raging infection was getting relief, the woman with the broken jaw was improving. None could wait long, but all could wait until the scheduled pickup. “I should go and--”

“Sikar!” Sarek sounded out of breath and badly strained. “Get me the surgical pack. _Now_.” He bolted in with an unconscious Solkar over his shoulder, laid him down, snatched up the pack and ran.

Sikar kept working while he wondered, lining up the patients for easy transport. The ship would be along in an hour at most. All he could find wrong with Solkar was a lot of bruising in his chest and some small shrapnel wounds, but he smelled oddly like chlorine.

Mestral carried in a smaller man, with Spock hobbling along leaning on him. Lhairre struggled in behind them with a badly wounded woman in his arms, trying to hold pressure on the artery in her thigh. Another wearing a general's jacket staggered beside him, holding a rag to the side of her face and hacking. They, too, all smelled vaguely like hospital laundry.

At first glance, Sikar thought Aunt Lia had beamed down unexpectedly, but much as the general looked like her, she was younger and didn't wear the heavy gold ring that never left the admiral's hand. The jacket—oh. She was the one who had been so upset the night before when the general in command had died. For that matter, once he got a better look at the man's face he recognized the distraught slave.

“The aid station,” Lhairre wheezed. “Direct hit, we got thrown across the street, most who were inside are dead, these are bad.” He laid his burden down gently—the woman the young general had retrieved from under the rolled vehicle earlier--and sank to his knees, coughing, as Sikar moved in with a tourniquet for the wounded woman's leg. He couldn't imagine anything else having an effect on the bleeding from the mangled limb. He turned to grab a dressing and saw blood on Lhairre's lips as he hung onto a rock and choked. “Gas. Chlorine. I think we got out in time. Oxygen?” Lhairre accepted the small bottle, sucking in breaths greedily. Poison gas, on top of everything; at least the fleeing troops didn't have atomic weapons yet.

Spock put himself on the floor and stretched out his leg. “It's only a sprain I can't walk on. Put that one here where I can help him.” _Yellow. He must return. So must she and the one with the bad leg._

Mestral unloaded the young man onto a blanket beside Spock. “His mind is a mess. It feels like much more than blast shock. Perhaps the general should also have attention.”

General Yellow Light wavered on her feet, the rag on her face already soaked green, and Sikar saw her other arm dangling useless. She tried to bend over the young man, but was unable to keep her balance. Aircraft went over so close that the cave shuddered and the ceiling shook sand and pebbles.In a second, a roar bigger than all those before went up outside. In her daze, she talked to herself. “They no longer have an ammo dump and they were retreating. Air support had our coordinates. How did they miss so badly?” She coughed as if she were annoyed with herself for her weakness and delicately extracted her bent arm from the ill-fitting armored coat. “Ow.”

Her bare shoulders made her injury all too apparent; her arm was obviously out of the socket. “S'haile, it would be good if you would sit,” Spock said with utmost politeness, not mentioning that she was bleeding on his patient. “Your injuries require attention.”

“He's hurt, please, I'm all right for now, take care of Mara and Arev. I need to manage this mess first.” A bout of wooziness made her wobble. “Uh. Maybe so.” She dropped, fished out her comm, wrangled it with one hand and put it on speaker so she could grab the rag again. “T'Mae, situation?” Her voice was suddenly as steady as if she'd been in her jeep on the road driving toward victory.

“They're in full flight toward the salt marsh. We're through their gas cloud. Shall we pursue?”

“With everything you can, but scatter. Which way is the wind?”

“Toward the Forge, fresh breeze.”

“Excellent, it'll clear us out. Have the reserves reached the city walls at Gol?”

“S'haile, Gol has surrendered! The watchman thought we were a sandstorm and we walked right in. Ginar's house guard did appalling things before we got them. The Seventh has what's left of the city now and stopped all that nonsense, and the Sixteenth is holding the line. Should they move down?”

She closed her eyes, tipped her face up and murmured something that had to be thanks, then went back to a mental map. “No. Have them hold Gol, help any civilians who will let them and watch Great Slide Road in case Ginar tries anything out the back way. I'd be looking at the recon, but that last hit on HQ was a real mess and what's left is on the move while we have the chance. I'll be out when I can.” She closed the channel and curled around her arm, shivering. Sikar tried to move in, but she waved him away. “No. Help the rest. I'm all right, just a little shaky.”

He gave her a clean towel. “As you wish, of course, General. Please hold that to your face. You're bleeding badly and your shoulder needs attention.”

Spock bailed him out. “Rekkhai, I am unable to help anyone else. This young man is in no danger and will regain consciousness shortly, at which time I suspect you will be very useful to him. Please,” Spock gestured to the sand beside him. She wobbled to him and sat. He began to run his fingers over her bared shoulder joint. With a quick decisive snap his hand closed on the pinch point and she went limp. He put the shoulder back in place matter of factly and strapped the joint with heavy tape. “My regrets, General. That joint has been dislocated for some time and wouldn't have gone back while you were conscious. Sikar, the skin regen?” He laid the general's head on his chest and cleaned the long ugly cheek wound, then carefully sealed it in layers to minimize the scar.

The wounded male slave was bruised down his entire right side, starting at the point of his shoulder, ribs with a couple cracked, and sprains in all of the major joints. They had seen similar injuries when Khan had attacked Starfleet HQ; the man had been thrown sideways into a wall. That wasn't what got Sikar's attention. He was covered in other bruises, old ones faded pale green and yellowish, newer ones dark and solid, and the dataset found evidence of many old fractures that had healed on their own. That pattern was also familiar.

As he worked, he found a wolf tooth broken and half knocked out, also an old injury. Second canines would grow back, so he pulled it, thinking if he survived he might as well be the _Enterprise's_ dentist. His ship seemed so far away; she didn't exist yet, the people who would build her didn't exist yet, the people who were repairing her didn't exist yet, and this planet that was trying to kill them no longer existed in her time, not that he could feel very sorry about that at the moment.

Whatever Sarek had needed to do outside, he had done, though he felt wrecked by it. Solkar seemed to be coming around under Mestral's ministrations, coughing painfully and sucking in oxygen. “Shrapnel,” Sarek said, staring off into space instead of at his dataset. His hands were telling him more than his sensors were. “It bruised but did not penetrate his lung. No major vessels hit, nor is entrapped air causing problems. This was a protective reaction to the chlorine exposure.”

Solkar gave the wry edge of a smile. “I'm still here, sa'fu'li.” Mestral propped him up and held his psi points for a few seconds, closing his eyes. Solkar relaxed. “Yes. Better, much. At least this time I'm not entirely dead and it wasn't personal.”

“You gotta quit making a habit of this.” Mestral fussed over him to get him in a comfortable position against a crate with a blanket, then swatted Sarek. “Hey. Ground.”

“Ah. You're right.” It wasn't as dramatic; there was no fulgurite in the sand that time when he drew his hands back. “This young woman...yellow, must return. This artery in her lower leg is badly damaged, as is the nerve. It would be simple to take it off and she can live here, though her prospects will be dim because of social pressure. The ship is three-quarters of an hour away even if we could take her there, but the artery repairs would be simple for even an ordinary healer. The actual regimental aid station will not have time to do anything but amputate.”

Spock met his father's eyes. “Temporary repairs that would enable them to save the limb are within your abilities. You have the equipment.”

He had seen Sarek in all manner of moods over the ast months, but this was new, a wilting and defeated sigh. “I doubt it.”

“Don't doubt. You can. I could if I hadnt been gassed,” Solkar snorted. “Get started.” An especially vicious crash shook the cave. “And let us hope the general's forces learn to aim better.”

The general was coming to, shaky but no longer bleeding. She flexed her arm experimentally, looked up at Spock and said, in evident sincerity, “Thank you, kinsman. If you ever neck-pinch me again I will kill you. The cause this time was certainly sufficient.”

“I did not believe you wanted to be awake for that experience, nor did I think you would want to be drugged into hours of sleep when you have seem to have managed something rather historic.”

“Only half, yet,” she sighed, sitting up and looking at the man they had brought in. “We'll see whether what's left of the Shanai Guards can hold the Fortress against what's left of Gol. Our Sixteenth couldn't intimidate a baby chick right now. Once again, my thanks. My arm is so much better, but--his condition?” She rubbed at her cheek and looked surprised.

“Painful, I don't doubt, but not fatal. Was he thrown into something on this side?”

“A building as we were running. I picked him up thinking to save him and nearly got him killed because he was with me. Someone dumped him along the road last night after General T'Khari went. No one picked him up all day in the heat, and he didn't care whether he moved or not.” She slid over to him and, to Sikar's surprise, laid the murmuring young man across her lap, cradling his head. “This won't hurt him, will it, ulen-hassu?”

“No.” Spock tried his dataset again, using the modern settings since no one saw. “Dehydration, hunger, the other injuries, are temporary setbacks.” That, but not what else he and Sikar both saw. “Is he yours, ka-osu?”

“I so wish. He was a slave of General T'Khari's. She force-bonded with him so he would feel obligated to stay with her. She was unkind to him. Most of us disapproved, but to disagree was to die, and he didn't want me to.” Her comm called her and she answered, once again crisp and responsible. “Yes? Excellent. I cannot at the moment, but very soon. Continue on Shanai Road to the junction. Have the Third take West Marsh Road and the Fourth go all the way down Old River as quickly and quietly as possible. They should encounter no opposition all the way to the marsh, when the Kiri should be encircled and looking in the other direction. Have the Second come on down Shanai Road prepared for action, but put up all the smoke and noise you can. We need them to think it's the main attack. Be aware that it's not so much a road now as where the road used to be. It's more craters than pavement and the desert to either side is fairly bad in Low Springs, but the back alleys in town are usable. Yes. Have them all rack up everything we have, and I'll tell you when. Let what's left of the Shanai Guards take point once you get there.” She closed the line again and turned her attention to the wounded soldier. “He's such a kind, good soul. War is not his calling. I begin to think it's not mine.”

“He has been beaten severely.” Sikar left no room for excuses.

“All of us at headquarters have. It's not good to speak ill of the dead, but she nearly killed him at the start of the war. I went to see because one of the junior aides was afraid. She beat him until he couldn't stand, then kicked him around her tent until I distracted her with a report.” She motioned to her shoulder. “Which caused the beginning of this when she threw me into a gully. Why was it our fault that the battle wasn't going as she wished? He was her slave, not her whipping boy.”

The wounded man tried to sit up, realized where he was and crumpled back to the young general, who held him as tightly as she could with one arm. “She's gone, elev.” Her voice snapped with bitterness. “Yes. She is _gone_. I saw her body on the pyre and watched it burn. I kicked away the ashes as I left, the way she kicked you, and I spat on them as she spat on you. She won't hurt us, ever again.” He struggled to talk. “I know, I know, she had your mind in knots.” Her commbegan to beep insistently, the urgent tone. “I need to talk to Colonel T'Mae. Shh, ashayam, while I talk, just this little.” She manhandled the comm again. “News?”

“Rekkhai, I have them at the junction, dividing as you ordered. Can we pick you up in ten?”

She muted the sound and looked to Sikar. “If he can't go we'll wait until he can travel.”

All of the decisions had to be quick tonight. He went through the medicine kit. “Take these for his pain, as the label says whenever he needs them, and here are some for you as well. They shouldn't make you tired or alter your judgment. Take some of these ration bars and fruit for both of you. I bet you haven't eaten anything yourself, either. Let me get you a sling. Your shoulder isn't going to be usable for a while. Had it been dislocated before?”

She gave him a wry smile. “After my commander was displeased, and I didnt get it back in right. Wrecking the jeep only made it worse. It'll do since he did such a good job taping it. I can drive with one hand if Mae doesn't have anyone available. Is Mara, that you have there--?”

Sarek had finished what he had been doing. “Osu, you must get her to ShiKahr to make sure she keeps the leg. Field hospitals will not have the facilities. The nerve was badly damaged and I cannot do full repairs. The bone is straight and immobilized but still in pieces. The artery will need watching to be sure these field repairs hold.”

“Then we'll fly her back to Plana-Hath Memorial and it'll be watched. I suppose being a general might have some good points after all.” She took out the comm again, called the unseen commander on the way, ordered up an air ambulance and wiped sweat from her forehead; that alone would have been a hint of how bad both the pain and the situation had been. “Yesterday morning I was a rather battered and over-promoted young captain. Now I'm the senior officer we have left. They peeled this jacket off T'Khari and put it on me, congratulations, you're now the big target. I'm rethinking the wisdom of automatic promotions. I'm definitely rethinking the wisdom of getting shot at. Mara is an excellent captain and now her leg is a mess because she was caught under the jeep. I'm so glad you could do more than just take it off.” She eased the dazed man up to her good shoulder and leaned her chin against his forehead. “We'll get her taken care of, and even if he doesn't need a hospital we'll get him to a safe place, won't we?”

Bad as the mess was, Sikar couldn't help smiling. “I have the feeling he's safer than he's been in a long while, and in much better hands. If I may say so, you seem rather fond of him.”

“It can finally show,” she agreed. “It's been so hard watching her treat him so, when I...you've already guessed the rest. She's had him prisoner for a year. I need to set him free.”

Solkar coughed and shook his head. “General. The broken bond is going to be in your way, and I'm fairly skilled in those repairs. Can you bring him here?”

The young man was still disoriented enough to gasp and whimper when they slid him gently across the sand to Solkar's side. The ritual of melding was usually private, but was anything private now? “I'm a healer. You can trust me. See?” Solkar whispered. His hands shook, but he managed to make the connection. In a little while he said softly “That wasn't your fault, osu. She had no right. The worst of crimes. No one may do that to another's mind.”

The atmosphere of the cave was light with absolution. Time seemed to stand still while horror lifted away and went out into the night where it belonged. After long moments, Solkar lifted his eyes to the general and motioned her to them. “What you want is in your mind as well as your heart, is it not?” She nodded. He looked back to the man. “Your body will be well soon, and you will have help. Will you take what she offers?” There was a faint nod.

The healer asked the general some question with his eyes. She bowed her head so he didn't have to stretch, and silent communion took place, squeezing tears from her eyes to rain down on the young man's face. “Anything,” Solkar said aloud, “you would give him anything, even your last drop of water.” The general did not speak, but nodded and held the young man's hand. He seemed to be swimming out of some very deep pit, grasping so he wouldn't fall. Solkar seemed to approve as he searched their minds. “The fever is close. It may happen within a month. Are you prepared for that?”

She answered aloud. “Yes, shel-hassu. I look forward to it if he will have me.”

“That is not at all in question. Your bond is imperfect yet, but very strong. It will mature when no one is shooting at you. It would be better to delay the Time if possible until he has his strength and you are healed. The medication kits...?” He turned his eyes to Sarek, who sorted through the boxes and gave her a discreet book-sized packet labeled “blood fever.” “The directions for all of the medications are there. I've given him an injection that will usually hold it off for a month, which should be ample time for both of you to be strong enough. If not, it won't be intense. The white pills are for when it starts, to lessen the intensity and the fever. Everything else is appropriately labeled.”

She blushed a bit with downcast eyes. “Yes, hassu.”

“You think you're a frightened half-grown girl, but you are strong enough for anything, including him, including this war, including the peace you will wage. You and he together cannot be stopped.”

“Sha'ari...” the man whispered. “Elev, Sha'ari, ashayam. Am I now free of her?”

She drew him awkwardly to her heart. “You were always free. Always mine, but always free.”

“Then I am bound to you. By my own will, bound, forever.”

The steel was back in her voice. “And I am bound to you, forever, of my own will.”

“You all heard them,” Solkar smiled. “I pronounce you bonded. It'll be better and better with time as his mind heals.”

Voices outside in the dark alerted them all. “General? Is she in here?”

“I am,” the general called. “I need some help here. Arev is in a bad way yet and we need to get Mara on that bird to ShiKahr General to be sure she can keep her leg.”

“Oh, not Mara!” The man who ran in must have been the general's brother, and it didn't take a genius to grasp that he was Mara's bondmate. He bent to scoop her up, but two flight aides had already run in with a litter. They transferred her with exquisite care, took her case notes and thanked Sarek. The brother helped Arev stand, looked at him and the general and gave them a brief crooked grin. “If we live through this I'll make sure you two have the best wedding ever.”

“It may not be long coming,” the general said. “Let's hope we can wait a little while.” A dozen more soldiers swarmed in, picking up those wounded who were well enough to go. Sarek surreptitiously verified their yellow status with the dataset as they were collected, while the rest checked dressings and fluid sets to be sure they were secure before they were moved.

The brother went out to manage the air ambulance's takeoff. In exchange, the soldiers brought in all of the greens Solkar and Mestral had been tending at their own aid station, laying them out as Sikar requested even though they might have found “groups of seven, arranged just so, this far apart” a bit odd. In minutes, Team Nine and their seriously wounded, all stable and sleeping, were left with only a still wobbly Arev and the general.

She started for the door, but turned to all of them. “I'd promise the lot of you promotions, but I have the feeling they wouldn't do much good where you're from. Solkar's mind is amazing, but not all that well shielded at the moment. Seriously? Since no one else can hear? Him? Me? Us? You?”

Solkar smiled. “Listen to the one who is now called Arev, ko'mekh'li. He's very wise and will be more so. You'll always take the public relations hit for him. This cave will come in handy while you're raising your numerous children. You knew that anyhow. History says you did.”

“Everybody's going to think I'm a crazy seer with occasional bouts of homicidal rage. Eh. At least the seer part is a new wrinkle.” She rubbed the side of her face again and looked down at Spock. “Thank you for this, too, kinsman...sa'fu'li! It wouldn't have killed me, but he won't have to look at it all the time and be reminded of what a savage I am.”

“He would accept you, regardless, ko'mekh'li,” Spock said. “The idea he treasures the most is that your differences are precious and their combinations invaluable.” For a moment, Sikar thought he was going to smile as easily as Solkar did. “May both of you live long and prosper.”

“That is such a lovely sentiment. I hope you all do the same. Our children's children and then some! Thank you. Oh...for everything, thank you.” She wrapped her good arm around the waist of her adoring Arev, who clung to her and held her up at the same time, and they staggered out the door.

“Stumbling out into history together.” Solkar said fondly. “The way they'll spend the next hundred and seventy-six years.”

“That was General T' Shaara and Surak, wasn't it?”

“He hasn't taken that name back yet, but yes. That poor battered soul sick of being shot at is about to start a revolution that will prevent the species from going extinct. She will spend her life trying to keep people from killing him while she adores the ground he walks on. Pity more people won't listen to what he's actually saying, nor listen to their son Jarok, whose katra makes those two marshmallows look positively hard-boiled by comparison.”

Mestral had not only directed the patient arrangements, but also lined up all of the supplies, gathered the trash and tossed it on the small fire he had started. Watching him be decisive and commanding was odd but weirdly familiar. “Too bad their granddaughter will try to keep people from hearing he meant 'quit killing, take care of one another, be as kind as you can and don't annoy anybody with your own problems or stick your nose in theirs' not 'act like you're a soulless machine.'”

Solkar tossed a pebble at the back of his head. “Your k'turr's showing.”

“Right. It's about time we get you and these all up to get taken care of.”

“I only needed to catch my breath. There are more to be tended here if we can bring--”

Mestral shoved the dataset with his numbers in his face. “Like hell, old goat, you've had too many holes in you over the years to take chances and you've been gassed. So has Lhairre.”

“Not as bad as it could have been,” Lhairre's squeaky voice left that debatable. He scanned himself and showed them the results as he leaned against a rock. “See? No major damage. I'm just going to be wheezy for a few hours.”

“Then let Sarek patch the shrapnel holes. Yes, those. You didn't even notice you're dripping. Junior, what'd you do to your knee now that we have a chance to look at it?”

Sikar thought a reprimand at Spock for having tried to hide it and was promptly reminded, in very rude terms, that this wasn't Starfleet. He rolled back the leg of Spock's pants and was relieved. “You're right, we've done worse to each other in the gym.” Without thinking, he fixed what he could and startled himself because it worked. “Oh. That'll come in handy.”

One of the monitors beeped. Sikar replaced the fluid bag that had run empty and gave one man a second dose of sedative because he had begun to thrash and moan. The comm chimed its early warning. He clicked back as he had the night before, and the wounded lifted off group by group, including a still-protesting Solkar who was in mid-complaint when he disappeared. Sikar and Mestral shoved the contaminated sand out the door and laid out fresh supplies while Sarek stretched out on his back for a few minutes' meditation or sleep, whichever came first. Once the work was caught up Lhairre lay down beside him and Spock did the same.

Mestral motioned Sikar to come outside with him, carrying the healer's bag. “Well,” Mestral said once they had seen what was out there. “That's... _remarkable_.”

Sikar's opinion was much less mildly expressed and nearly came out in Standard. Instead of the wreckage of one army, what lay before them was the wreckage of two, one all but annihilated in its homeward flight. History would say the Kiri general, too sure of herself after her initial easy rout, had both overextended her supply line and run headlong into her own artillery barrage while the defenders accidentally shot short. The Kiri army tried to double back, got lost in the wrecked terrain and the twilight and bogged down in the salt marsh remains of the ocean, where they were easy targets. “Somebody,” he managed to squeak, “will have to clean all of this up.”

Mestral pointed to a slowly rising star in the distance, soon followed by a dozen more. “There goes the First Exodus. The peace party tried to convince the Kiri ministers no good would come of saber-rattling. When they got nowhere, they started building ships. When the war started and the party saw how the battle had gone, they loaded up their husbands and children on their half-done ships and took off in the small hours of that morning. Some are just trying to get to T'Kuht, most to Romulus.”

“They don't have warp.”

“No, they know it'll take them a little over three years to get to Romulus. When the Raptor's Wing forms, they'll sort of have warp drive and be able to aim better. Only half of the ships we see leaving tonight will get where they're going.”

“Hey, wait, doesn't that mean we could--”

“Ru is scanning on every orbit in case they got in trouble right after liftoff the way they often did. No one ever went to look for them before va'Pak because of resistance from T'Pau and company.”

Not only rebels without logic, but _Kiri_ rebels without logic. Judging by what he'd seen, some old habits were immortal. “Once again, what is left will be...”

“Willing to come forward, or anywhere, so long as they don't have to go back to Vulcan.” Mestral nodded to himself. “Did our admiral tell you what message she sent in the clear when she took the decision? All the prisons had to be ready, all the hidden assets had to mobilize, all her loyal captains had to move, but not even a coded transmission was possible under the circumstances.”

“No, she didn't.”

“She sent an old Kiri folk song. 'On this very night our stars will rise; our freedom lies not here, but in the skies...' And so it is.” He folded his arms and thought hard. “Give Solkar work to do while he's getting over being gassed. He still thinks he's immortal even after he's been dead three times.”

“He'll hear you even in orbit, won't he?”

“Of course. I couldn't hide from him if I tried. He couldn't hide from me when he did try.”

“He told me about that.”

“He was in Bozeman, two years after first contact, sorting out the initial treaty. His mother told him T'Izh had been assassinated by High Command separatists, the funeral was nice and they had Izh's brother light the pyre since he wasn't there. She didn't care about him, but he did about her. Is there anybody John doesn't care about? I was able to get there and show him how to fix some of the damage.” He sighed. “Not quite fast enough.”

“If I'd been able to explain why I was in a panic about space lightning, Spock would have had time to get way more people out, if he didn't just stop the attack, and he'd be the big damn hero.”

“That'll drive you crazy, kid. I can't sort it out for anybody else, but if that hadn't happened we wouldn't be here, so this messed-up timeline is fixing itself.”

“This wreckage is hard to look at, the big empty spot is worse, and all of the people left hurting when they don't admit it, ow.”

Mestral slung an arm around his neck. “You're the only one handy I can do that to. You know how that works, right? Be his excuse. I know how smart you are. You hide it because you're tired of 'If you're so smart, how come you can't--' but I know. Let Spock pretend to be your brain. You pretend to be his heart. Nobody needs to know it's a two-way street on both ends. When you need a hug, make an excuse to touch him so he can say you're a poor emotional human and he had to help.” Catching on, Sikar put his arm around Mestral. “Damn. Yes. Needed that, thanks.”

It felt like recharging, the two of them standing still in the night air listening—Sikar realized he was, too—for anyone who might yet be saved. They sighed at each other and went back to examining the datasets for green lights and directions. Several yellows popped up. “Please, nothing too bad.”

“Yeah, he's too far away for me to pick up directions to stuff somebody's heart back in.” Mestral went to their vehicle. Even though it had rolled over and back, it started and had enough battery power left to use. “We got water, combat bars and a few fruit left. Anything left to scavenge on yours?”

When they combined the remaining supplies, they went off to use them. Going down the main road was impossible; the division's rapid advance, coupled with the craters, made it too dangerous to maneuver into traffic. Even the alleys were crammed with soldiers moving as fast as they could toward Kir. The walking wounded had either hitched rides or were hobbling along, two streets back, where the small town ended at what had been the seashore a hundred years before. Yellows were abundant, likely to survive, but tired, hungry and thirsty. Blistered feet and sprains, various aches from the stress and small wounds were the main medical problems, all easily remedied. The most serious problem they found was a man who had an overly tight, easily fixed splint on his broken forearm.

Until they found Sochya.

She must have been wounded in the first attack, three days before. Her captain lay beside her, looking dead of a chest wound. The soldier had stayed, no doubt waiting for orders, help or someone to pick up the captain's body, until she bled too much and lay down, carefully arranging the captain's torn clothing in a dignified way, then doing the same for her own. The way she had taken care of matters was touching even before they found her notes in the captain's order book: their names, ranks, unit, a brief recap of what had happened, the captain's final order for the unit to leave her in order to save itself, the soldier with both legs injured who volunteered to stay behind and wait with her so the unit could escape. “In civilian life I was a nurse. The Order of Hath should care for my family if they live. My membership number is 17465. My parents no longer speak to me, but they are old and my brother will be unable to support himself and his children if his wife has fallen. I bear them no ill will and understand.” Their names and addresses ended the first entry. She had continued to log her observations of the battle at fifteen-minute intervals up to half an hour before their arrival with an entry where the precise handwriting had gone shaky and nearly illegible.

“She could be a coal miner.” Mestral was reverent as he treated her. “How many times the guys trapped would write last letters...like them, she thought of every little detail.”

“Order of Hath was the medical organization, right?”

“Still is. Union, insurance company and educational service. Wonder what the falling-out was? Her parents got her pension and insurance money and don't show up on relief rolls, and it looks as if the brother's family was all right so her sister-in-law must have made it.”

“Sounds like it's their loss, even if they weren't speaking. We could use another nurse. Extra knowledge can't take as long as starting from scratch.” Sikar looked around. “ _Two_ green lights? She isn't pregnant and I don't see anyone else.”

“Wait a second.” Mestral touched the captain's face. “Ha! Captain Rian is an adept, so far into a deep trance to keep her brain going that she doesn't even register. Bet it works.”

They carried the two to the vehicle, then Mestral copied the order book and put it back with the discarded weapons and outer clothing. “Can't take that along?”

“No, because after Sochya's brother and parents were done with it, it ended up in the archives to show how a brave woman spent her last hours. Too bad this original gets destroyed eventually, but first it went to her family so they knew she was thinking of them. That's what it's really for.” They drove back toward the cave along a street of ruined buildings, where a blinking, urgent green light flared.

Sikar got out cautiously, scanning for threats in the stucco building that no longer had a front. The interior was cheap and garish, unlike most Vulcan homes of any time, but everything of value had been removed. There were no bodies or blood. He climbed the rubble, scooting aside broken furniture and trying not to shine too much light in case of snipers from either side. Mestral climbed up after him. “I don't get it. What is this place?”

“Can't read the price list, can you? It's in old script.”

“Oh. It was a business?”

“You've been in more than a few like it.” Mestral read the services on offer, causing Sikar to turn redder than was wise.

The green light should have been underfoot, but he shoved aside a beam and saw only a wad of rags. It seemed heavy when he made to push it away. Heart in throat—bomb? Body parts?--he unfolded it. The weight was a newborn baby boy, starved and hot until all he had left was the faintest of mews.

Mestral ran a brief scan and picked him up. “No one who was here will be back for him.”

He stared around. “They didn't...they didn't just.” The umbilical cord was still attached. No one had bothered to cut it when they left the unwanted newborn. Mestral made use of it for the fluid line. He had a brief flash of the broken place in Sarek's mind where the babies he and Amanda had lost lived. “I mean, if you don't want them...”

Mestral pointed to a stream of letters down the doorframe, written in green...oh. MAK SAVE BABY TAKING ME TO KIR. “Seems the mother and madam had a disagreement, eh? Didn't you ever wonder what guys do when they're in heat and not married? You can hurry up and find a girl, go out in the desert and die, or pay a hooker. Back then, they'd send babies to the father's clan for a nice fee. Most families were glad because most unmated guys were that way for a reason. I'd guess the madam figured the family wasn't paying and the kid would be in the way on the road.” He climbed down carefully. “He wouldn't have seen his first morning.”

His throat was tight as he slid behind the controls and looked over at the little boy in Mestral's arms. “You didn't deserve that, buddy. We don't have mother's milk on us, but there's some on the ship. Plenty of people will fight over who gets to take you home.”

“Eh, we have living relative green lights to find,” Mestral said, holding his dataset with one hand and snugging the baby and fluid pack into his chest with the other. “If they left him, I'd just as soon not look for them, but I suppose we should when we get these taken care of.”

The relative's light didn't pop up on that road, so they went into the cave and put the women in place for the night's last transport. Mestral sat on the floor with the baby, letting him suck glucose water out of a syringe. When the baby finished the water, he tucked him into the crook of Sarek's arm. “That's where he'll wind up anyway. Man was made to have fifty kids and barely got one.”

“It does seem a shame.”

“That side has fertility trouble to start with. My side, Clan Kril'es, we don't. Vulcan babies are fully cooked the same time as humans, but most hang around inside until they can thermoregulate, hold their heads up and all. Same with the mother having to be able to drop 'em and run with 'em. Nobody told me Maggie was going to hurt like that and barely squeeze out a little helpless three and a half kilo guy. She had to tell me about forty times that Bud was normal.” Mestral folded his arms and looked down. “Want to go see who else got left under a bunch of rags?”

“Want, no, need to, yes. The ship'll be along in an hour and a half. Will he be—I mean, will they know--” Spock and Lhairre were still dozing and Sarek had barely moved.

“Sarek already does. If the kid needs anything, he'll come around and take care of it.”

They made a last round of the field, but even yellow lights were scarce. Other teams had picked up most who could go and helped most who had to stay. They delivered two footsore stragglers and one dying man to the rear guard at their request, circled far around the ongoing battle, and stopped at the lone green light, the oddest yet: a man upright in the mud of an old riverbed beside a crashed motorcycle, stuck waist-deep and immobile.

“Excuse me. Could you gentlemen either shoot me or get me out of here?” He was nothing if not polite. “I wouldn't trouble you, but I was headed to, er, make a pickup down the road, panicked when the shelling started and high-sided this bike. I've also done something nasty to my back.”

“You certainly have,” Sikar agreed. The scanner showed two ugly and likely painful breaks in the lumbar spine. He tried to picture how to pry the man loose. The threat scan revealed he wasn't holding any weapons. It also blinked an urgent Living Relative Rescue. “Aren't you--”

“Kril'es Mak,” the trapped man sighed. “I was running away because I have no intention of fighting. We were going to leave a little later, but the gang got scared and launched without me.”

Kril'es Mak, prolific science fiction author and space pioneer, had disappeared at the Battle of the Salt Marsh on his way to join the First Exodus. “I think you may be pleasantly surprised when we pry you loose. Carefully.” They had to keep an eye on the clock while they extracted him and picked up his belongings, but within ten minutes they were trundling off with an appreciative and astonished man.

The remnants of their teams looked a little better for the hour's rest. Lhairre had inventoried the supplies and Spock had managed to get the records done. Apparently, Sarek had taken care of the women while carrying the baby tucked into his shirt. He flinched, pulled up his lapel, looked in and said “That isn't going to work. Let me see what we have.”

“More glucose water.” Mestral handed him another large syringe. “It'll do in a pinch.”

“Pinch. How appropriate. An advanced child; he's thinking of teething.”

“Dear me,” said Kril'es Mak. “I believe he's--Where did he come from?”

Mestral was, for once, delicate. “There was a house along the road by the marsh, halfway down the block. No one was there but the baby. There was note about someone being taken to Kir.”

“Ah. I'd say it was a house of ill repute, but its reputation wasn't ill. I, ah, may have made use of it myself last year and I was going there tonight to pick up my son and his mother so we could leave.”

Sikar raised an eyebrow at him. “I take it you suspected he was yours?”

“Suspected? I _knew_! The house requested a large payment for him and more for his mother. Dear woman, taken prisoner two years ago and promptly forced into service because of all the deaths. Negotiations were ongoing and included an insurance policy I hope I paid up. How many writers would have that kind of change in the bank? His marketability was going to decrease with nearly the whole clan trying to take off, and I was certainly worth more dead than alive.”

That was a charitable way to look at it. “Someone did collect on the policy, according to this. As for your whole clan leaving T'Khasi tonight,” Mestral thumbed up his own DNA and put it side by side with Mak's, “not quite.”

The writer goggled for a moment and clapped his hands to his face. “An almost instant DNA profile! This is wonderful! His and mine are a father and son match, of course. Oh, it's too bad about her, I do so wish...the usual arrangement was that I could buy them both, but...Who are you?”

“Kril'es Mestral. We knew there were two family pickups along the road, but this baby is a definite surprise. You realize he wasn't your only, right?”

“After her mother kicked me out for not making enough money...” he gave a rueful shrug, “I never saw my daughter again.”

“You won't likely see her, but as for her descendants, you're surrounded.” Sikar kept his mouth shut about the less cheerful fact: many Kril'es survived on both sides of the Neutral Zone, but the baby would be the only survivor of his mother's entire clan. The few descendants who didn't die in the upcoming wars would be lost centuries later with T'Khasi.

For the first time, the achy and dazed author looked around at the others in the cave. “I take it that whenever you're from, these big ShiKahri do not intend to stomp me into kasa paste.”

“I believe you will find us remarkably nonviolent,” Spock intoned. His attempt to look tame was comical. Sarek was too tired to make the effort, preferring his best stone face even while the baby was attempting to eat him alive.

Lhairre shook his head. “My mother's ancestors were on one of those shuttles that just left and my sa'mekh caught up with them not at all by choice a few centuries later. We're all peace treaties here. When we get upstairs, Sikar will have an explanation that will _really_ amaze you.”

“An hour ago I was up to my chest in mud and my son was abandoned. Now we're here and about to go where no one has gone before.”

“Sort of,” Mestral let himself grin. “So, sa'mekh'li. To get up there most efficiently, we need to use a transporter, the idea for which may have come from your _Beam Up The Captain_. You might have been a little too optimistic about how smooth the process is. It feels as if your body is being shaken to atoms and reassembled by distant quantum entanglement...which is more or less what happens. I think I know your answer, but do you want a sedative beforehand?”

“No! Oh, seriously, quantum entanglement actually _works_? Ow. I can't wait. Ow.” He decided to be a little less emphatic even though he was on the backboard with proper head and neck bracing. “I take it lying down like this is the best idea?”

“Yes, and we'd better snug the straps so you don't jar unnecessarily. You were cold enough from the mud to be a little numb, which was a good thing, but you'll warm up, it'll wear off and you'll want something for that. Until then, our chief healer can do some good.”

Sarek made the short-circuiting connection at the back of Mak's neck to turn off the pain for a little while. The ship chimed at Sikar, and he was about to send the number when he remembered the baby wouldn't show as separate unless they set him down, which wasn't likely to happen. The ship acknowledged, and they all looked around the cave. Sarek scooped a handful of sand from the floor, composed himself and waited. Spock watched him for a moment, half-smiling, and let Sikar lift him to his feet and steady him. “Off we go into the wild blue yonder,” he said to Mak, whose eyes went wide as saucers when the beam started.


	10. Brave New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everyone is grateful to be rescued, and even those who are doubt their company. On the other hand, Nick brought along his favorite I Love Lucy episodes as instructional material, so things will be all right.

Most of the news was unhappy, as expected; three patients had dissociated from shock, and many more had lain down to die only to wake in a strange life from which they could not return. Two Kiri tried to commit suicide when they found themselves in what they believed were enemy hands. There were wobbly attempts at fighting where soldiers of opposing parties were left too close together in Recovery. On top of that, there was horror among the warriors when they realized most of their captors were of ancestry so mixed that they amounted to abominations.

All of that had been anticipated, so the ship's company grumbled back at the troublesome ones, who were mostly too battered to put up a physical fight and too inexperienced in mental combat to do much damage. It had begun to depress Kirk, even when he wasn't being Sikar.

Because the captain knew the prevailing mood—of course—he laid on comfort food for brunch rather than waiting for mid-meal. By the look of the extensive buffet, Ru must have cooked all night. He fussed his way around the cabin, coaxing even the exhausted into a decent meal. Sarek was about to content himself with a cup of tea until Ru brought him a still-warm fruit roll. “Judy wouldn't let me live it down if I let you starve, you know.”

“Hardly,” Sarek said, but began to pick at the food. “Interesting. What is this filling?”

“Blackberries from the back garden. They grow wild on that whole hillside.” Ru discussed his garden at length until the roll disappeared, then he and Spock got on the topic of cooking with Terran foods, which meant everyone had to try the naan with walnut soup. By the time their healer excused himself to go to bed, he had eaten a substantial bowlful and no longer looked quite so wan. “That works at home, too,” Ru smiled after him.

“I am so glad you're there,” Spock said.

“Advantage of a regular run. With the house in Carbon Creek, I can make sure Nick and John are all right, and on New Vulcan Judy's always keeping an eye on him and _ahem_ Cousin Selek.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Have I been behaving myself?”

“No, you have not. You've been ignoring your arthritis and trying to do things your body won't any more, for which my wife scolds you at least daily when she's there. You also come over every few days to lecture Sarek on everything from his need to find a suitable bondmate to his insufficient rest and food. Since you're at least technically his elder, he has to sit and listen to you.”

Kirk guffawed. “Sweet revenge.”

“More appropriate for the other timeline's Sarek. By the way, I exist over there, but that one has no idea I'm his son, not his uncle. That Sarek won't know about being a great-grandfather many times over from both of us, because toward his end you weren't talking to him about your personal life, only politics, and with the Bendii syndrome kicking in he wouldn't have grasped the concept anyhow. I hope we lose that part but keep the kids. Ask Other You for the details, but you aren't sterile. Oh, look at the time. I need to get the other rolls out of the oven.”

Spock looked after him with what Kirk could only describe as fond outrage. “Genetically Sarek's, by sense of humor John's. Worse yet, I know he's telling the truth.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“No. He treasures even tiny amounts of good news.” He shook his head slightly as he looked down. “Tonight _has_ to be easier for Father. Last night, meant to be easy, was excessive.”

“He carried Solkar in and he's far too heavy, then ran out with the surgical kit...?”

“I caught a glimpse of his mind while we were resting. He tried to get two soldiers out from under a bombed personnel carrier by, shall I say, extraordinary means. They were nearly dead when he tried, and he did try. Jim, I couldn't have done it.”

The naked admission startled him and demanded some touch and word of comfort whether or not Spock would ever admit to needing it. “You'd try anything if it mattered enough.”

“Unfortunately, that's even more true of him, most especially now. He'll break himself.”

“He has a lot of help. As for breaking, near misses don't count.” He stood and offered his arm so Spock could get up. “Speaking of working insanely hard, you need to get off that knee if you're going back out tonight.”

 

The day crews had restocked for them, so his actual work was minimal, if the prospect of being the pretend-primary healer was daunting. They would beam into the eastern part of contested territory, far around the other side of the former ocean near the city of Kir itself, and Sarek and Spock would be his slaves. Since neither captive-to-be had awakened, he left the two exhausted Vulcans laid out like corpses in the bottom bunk and went off in search of a shower, his costume and all the advice he could get from the eastern people on board, both ancient and modern.

Solkar had liberated himself from his nurse wife and went about trying to help the newly retrieved as well as the teams. He was doing fairly well until he checked on the author Kril'es Mak, who took one look at the solemn enormity of black-clad ShiKahri bending over him and fainted. Solkar shrank into himself. “Huuh.”

“Oops” translated in most languages. One of the doctors pried loose the baby to see how well he had hydrated. “Full-term, quite well-developed for this age, mental effects minimal and temporary if any. He's due a feeding--” She was about to carry the child off, but handed him back. “I'll go get it.”

The doctor returned with a bottle warmed to body heat, and once the baby found what was in it he lunged and guzzled. His father had recovered from his faint, albeit he still looked terrified. Solkar tried to make himself as small and inoffensive as possible, which wasn't very. “I don't ordinarily kill people, honest,” he whispered, his only way to hide the booming ambassadorial voice that carried for a city block. “As for this very welcome little one, did you have a name in mind for him?”

“That was also in negotiation. I suppose Ihnat's opinion is immaterial now, but I wish it weren't,” the author whimpered. “I'm trying not to offend you, s'haile. By the way, if I may ask, osu, do your eyes actually not have irises?”

“They're just very dark. There are a lot of Betazoids on my side of the family...hmm, you hadn't met them yet. It'll be two hundred and fifteen years from your time before Vulcan makes first contact, literally, when our research ships commit an act of severe improbability by running into each other. Intermarriages started shortly thereafter. You were right about that as well, and most full Betazoids are empaths, so the hybrids are all at least adepts.” He motioned to Kirk-Sikar. “Speaking of contact, now he can see you in the light.”

“Are you well, osu? Your skin is...” Mak eyed the skinned knuckles suspiciously. The stem cells had given Sikar traces of green in his blood, but the drying scabs were reddish rather than brown. Mak's face burst into delight. “You're an alien!”

“And I am half,” Spock agreed. “Once again, a long story. But...the baby?”

“Perhaps Korsau, 'rescued.' Or perhaps...What is that other healer's name?”

“Father? Sarek.”

“Hm. 'Lonely one.' No, I think Kril'es Korsau will do. I don't know his mother's clan because she's a slave and they wouldn't let her talk about that.” Mak sighed and looked around again, forcing down what seemed like terrible sadness. “But he's here. Your other half is...Betazoid, did you say?”

“No, human. The planet is Terra, or Earth, Sol 3. Sikar is also called James Kirk. His ears are normally rounded, but have been cosmetically enhanced for this mission. He is a starship captain.”

“A captain! Of a _starship_!” Not even injuries and grief could diminish Mak's enthusiasm. “How am I ever going to write science fiction after this?”

One of the surgeons, fortunately Kiri and not intimidating, had come by to flip through his chart. “We're ready for you now, osu Mak. Yours should be a minor and short procedure, minimally painful and much less so than what you currently endure. Yes, you can be awake for it. As for your work, of which I am a fan, do not concern yourself with lack of material. There is a very large amount of space out there with worlds you cannot imagine, and you will be welcome in much of it.” It was impossible not to chuckle at Mak's grilling of the surgeon for details as she took him into the operating bay, not because Mak was afraid but because that, too, was enormously interesting.

After they left, Sikar went to the recovery beds where the captain and her faithful soldier lay. Both were still very weak, but the nurse held the captain's fingers in the oz'eshta. “Bondmates?”

The nurse shifted her eyes around. “That depends. Is it allowed here?”

“Of course. I'll note your chart so you can make decisions for her while she's in her trance and you'll be primary to help her wake up.”

“The unit wasn't going to leave us. She had to order them back to the city. Did they make it?”

“They'll retake the ground where you were this morning and move right into the city of Kir before peace breaks out. You wouldn't have lived that long, and the way you're hurt, we couldn't do first aid and leave. They couldn't have handled the wounds.”

“Oh, believe me, I know. It's astonishing to me that I'm alive, and most especially that she is. I didn't think even a deep trance would help. I may be able to get around decently in time. As for her, they managed most of her problems, but getting her out of her trance will be a challenge.”

The memory still made him shudder. “I had to help bring back an empath after he nearly bled out. It took six of us and we all had headaches by the time he reattached.”

The sharp features softened faintly. “And he was functional afterwards?”

“He's flying this ship and cooking on the night shift. I think he's recovered.”

That got an eyebrow raised. “Considering his soup and biscuits, his recovery is exceptional. He sounds like an interesting case study. Another question, if I may. This ship is full of what are obviously our people, but most are so...mechanical, for lack of a better word.”

“Followers of Surak don't believe in expressing emotion because they believe it's what started all of the wars. We have an explanatory vid about how Vulcan society works now, if you would like to watch it while you're waiting for her.”

“I should, then I'll need to reeducate myself, because there are procedures going on here we couldn't have dreamed of.”

He brought her a padd and showed her the controls. The admiral had found linguists to overdub the vids in several languages and dialects. A traditionalist explained her devotion to control, the admiral and Lhairre represented Jarok followers to talk about their muted but present emotional response, a completely k'turr couple declared they were in love and didn't get the whole emotionless thing, and a Kohlinahru tried to recruit anybody who might supplement the sadly depleted ranks. At one time, some ten percent of the population had attained Kolinahr, with varying degrees of success, sincerity and persistence. Unfortunately for the cult, most of the dedicated practitioners had been in the monastery at Gol refusing to concern themselves with external matters when the planet imploded.

From the reactions he heard as people watched the vid, he gathered most were not going to embrace Kolinahr anytime soon. The more popular clips gave practical advice on idioms, accents, food and drink and the climate of New Vulcan. Those who would have a long rehab on Earth had Terran cultural materials, including a vid from Judy the healer on how to read various gestures. The assist by Bones endangered his efforts not to upset anyone by laughing. On the small screen, Judy looked toward the camera. “Remember, most Terrans don't understand what you don't say or physically show them. They rarely mean touching you to be an attack. Most often, it's a friendly gesture. Most will offer you their name on meeting you and will expect you to use it freely. Won't you, Len?”

“I sure would, Dzjhud'i!” After mangling her actual name, Bones grabbed her hand in a vigorous shake and slapped her shoulder in drunk politician style. “How do you like Earth so far, huh?”

Judy looked appropriately horrified. “I have not experienced much of Earth culture to date.”

“You gotta come over and have a few drinks with us!” The conversation went on in that vein, with Judy more and more a deer in the headlights until she broke character at the end.

“Hardly anyone on Earth is _that_ outgoing, but we just illustrated the innocent errors anyone unfamiliar with us might make. These might not be so innocent.”

Bones then tried to impersonate a harasser. Between the stress from the past few days and the absurdity of Len trying to be a handsy obnoxious drunk for the camera, Kirk had to laugh and decided he wasn't going to hide it. “Sorry,” he gasped, and went back to chuckling.

The patients who were watching stared at him. “Oh! Some people still laugh?”

“Mine never stopped. K'turr laugh like I do, Jaroks try not to be obvious about it and followers of Surak claim not to have a sense of humor. I was trying to be polite, but the incongruity of my friends Len and Judy acting like that is just too much. They understand each other and that would never really happen.” There was a murmur of understanding and surprise. Some of the best lessons weren't on vid.

Some started that way. Mestral had a bunch of Syrannites gathered around his padd, watching the first episode of _I Love Lucy_ he had seen when he crash-landed into 1957 Earth. He could speak the old dialect a lot of the patients used, so he was translating, explaining and inviting questions. John Solkar strolled in and playfully half-choked him from behind. Gasps of horror quickly turned to surprise. “He's one of us, and _he's_ one of _them_ , and look! They're joking. Are they t'hy'la?”

“Ye-es,” John whispered. “We have been for we forget how many years of running back and forth in time on several planets.”

Nick dropped his own voice. “But we're not really older than most dirt.”

John craned over the top of his head to look him in the eyes upside down. “Compost?”

“I'll give you we're younger than compost. Or volcanic ash. Why are we whispering?”

“Because the last time I tried to talk out loud a man fainted.”

“If you didn't have the Darth Vader Voice of Doom it would help. Don't worry, I brought all of the _Star Wars_ movies with us too. Those are longer entertainments,” he explained to the patients.

“Ah!” one of them cried, “you two are _k'turr_ , like us. Did I get it right?”

“Yes,” John said. “Very good!”

“But what about Sikar? Syrannite, but I can't tell what other nation.”

“See the aliens in these vids?” Nick held up the padd. “He's one of them.”

“Speaking of which, I need some help,” he said to deflect the round of excited talk. “Tonight we're going near Kir to pick up those who were then-fatally injured when one of the first flights blew up on the launch pad.” He explained their mission. “What do I need to know? Am I dressed right?”

One of the half-grown girls gasped. “My mother was trying to get out on the flight. Of course we'll help, but can you tell me...?”

He consulted his padd, afraid of what he'd find. Relief awaited. “Green light. Where did she live and which road is she likely to use, in case she's not aboard?” As if knowing who he was looking for and what it would mean weren't bad enough, several more of the rescued gave him such hints.

Worse yet, he found Spock and Ru poring over a death certificate and muttering to each other. That couldn't be good, and he was afraid to find out why they were so interested. It was a fairly recent one in modern lettering. “Entirely possible, now,” Spock said. “At the time, most unlikely.”

“If only they had acted faster or had a stasis chamber the way we would at even that small a clinic now. I showed Judy without giving her details that might influence her, and she agreed, there's no reason it won't work. Details are lacking on the certificate, but the most probable cause is blood loss.”

“How long would we have once we get him?”

“Technically, four minutes, but since there was CPR right away, she estimates we may have as much as two minutes longer. The sooner the better. All iterations verify the body's absence means nothing to the timeline. As for details, the committee ruled we have to go forward as planned, then take the shuttle back ourselves once the main ship is safe in our time, but they will wait for us. I estimate the entire extraction should take one powered orbit. One of us pilots, the other makes the run and transports, using a portable support unit. You're the better blood match, so you can load it beforehand and either of us can go, though the committee wants you to. We owe it to him.”

“We owe it to both of them,” Spock agreed. “Actually all three, but she won't know.”

“She'd have to know all of the future, and nobody should have to live with that. If we succeed, we can tell him. Until then, not?”

“I concur. It would be unwise to give false hope if the situation is untenable.”

“We can take it.” Ru looked down at his padd and its image of his unborn little girl. “Can't we.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Kirk-Sikar interrupted, since they weren't precisely hiding their work. He had the sense of Spock nudging him and Ru wanting to reach out but being dubious, so he asked. “Am I going?--Have you got Amanda?”

“Not yet,” Ru said sending off a jolt of confidence. _Not yet, but we're getting closer._

That time Spock leaned back physically as well as mentally, looking casual but feeling terribly grateful. “Not Mother, but it _is_ a 'needs of the one' permitted mission. That is all I can say. It would be better for you not to know the details or go with us. We may need you as a distraction here. Believe me, I trust you--”

“I do too,” Ru added. “But you haven't been trained to shield well yet and there are empaths.”

Which was a perfectly good answer, loony as it would have sounded a year ago. “Here be dragons,” he smiled. “Friendly ones. Well, if you need backup, you know where I am.”

Evening came before he was ready. Space had been cleared in the second cargo bay for the pets, livestock and seed they knew the would-be colonists had packed. Other teams would be using their night hours to retrieve sehlat and le-matya cubs who the program saw as not vital to the timeline, or to rob extra eggs from birds' nests and bring them to the new world for incubation.

One team had already gone down in daylight and retrieved several now-extinct plants from wild high mountain lands. The Betazoid hybrids had been in the heart of the fighting at Gol, and the mission was a thanks for their cold-tolerant courage since the mountains were a surpassingly beautiful vacation spot in rare moments of peacetime. No one was within a hundred miles of them and the planes were all flying far north of their position. To everyone's amazement, they simply collected what they were after and beamed back up unnoticed.

Mak was delighted to have most of the pain gone with a solid back brace to keep him from bending the wrong way. The nurses got him on his feet to walk up and down the hallway, then helped him lie down again, where he could hold a padd and read the way starving people ate. The baby, for his part, was happy to lie between his father's chest and elbow when he wasn't engaged in bouts of frantic eating. “My word,” Mak kept saying to him as he absorbed more and more. “This is astonishing. I need to research that. Oh, my. Did you see this, Korsau?” Half of the patients might be confused or angry, but it was hard to imagine anyone more appreciative to be alive than Mak.

Not all of the healers were happy. “What do you mean, I can't go?” Solkar whined.

“You still have breathing issues and the crash site is going to be nothing but dust and fumes.” Hana was very much a Marine nurse of any planet or era, accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed. She was small, so it wasn't height that gave her the ability to stare John down.

“But I can still help here?” He was very nearly whimpering as he wheezed.

“As long as you don't scare anyone and you sit down when I tell you.” To take the edge off, she reached up and brushed a hand across his psi-points, lingering softly at the corner of his jaw. “I know, neither of us is as old as our papers say, but neither of us is a teenager, either.”

The wounded captain's bondmate asked what she meant by that, and Hana described her own months of rehab after her patrol ship came out of its self-caused anomaly and dumped her directly into a new war. “The same happened to a lot of early Raptor's Wing warp launches. We may be able to dislodge some when we cross their last known paths as we slingshot out. We were nearly run over by a very large warship, the _Gol_ , that seemed to thaw time around us. It was most impressive.”

“Oh, my. I need to research a _lot_ more,” the captain's bondmate said, and went back to her padd.

“All teams ready,” Ru called. “To review: Our retrieval is the cargo and crew of the most ill-advised attempt to get off the planet anyone will remember. Nearly the entire population of a very small town near Kir was disgusted by the warfare. They read a few manuals, attempted to build their own rocket in a few days and loaded all of their livestock, who are now nearly as vital to the project as the people. We'll grab the animals with the cargo transporter as soon as the dust storm obscures the site, then get the people aboard with the fine-mesh beam. Even the Guardians are not sure which casualties were aboard and which were on the ground nearby, but it won't matter because we're grabbing them all if we can. The rocket's non-standard engines will explode from some combination of stress during liftoff and dust getting sucked in, so we need ground truth on lack of visibility in case any realtime observers don't get killed.”

That was a lovely way to put it, but they had walked through the simulation and knew what it would look like, “not pretty” being the kindest description. “Only three teams are going to Kir because the transporter will do most of the work. Team Nine, you're upwind behind the brush. Tell us when the dust is heavy enough to keep anyone watching the launch from seeing the beams. We plan to pull everyone off the ship just before the explosion. You then run in and see if anyone thrown clear can be saved. We know there is at least one urgent to critical relative green and several other relatives in your section who will have to be picked up on the main road into town beyond the blast zone. Team One, for your substitute healer I got you a Kiri who isn't going to scare anyone.”

The loaned healer was a stocky elderly man who barely came up to John's chest and made even mid-sized Mestral look like a willowy giant. He gave a hint of smile and bowed.

Ru went on. “Team One, same orders, location two and a half kilometers from Nine. Take the green, help any yellows although none are anticipated, give humane care to any reds you find, and pick up any green-light artifacts you can salvage if you have time. Big desert predators will be out, so don't get too elaborate. Team Twelve, you'll be beside the zoo seconds after it takes heavy damage. As soon as you finish your scheduled retrievals, stun and take any animals you can. None were known to have survived by the time anyone went looking in the morning, but a lot may have escaped in the dark. It's a shorter list than it sounds like and should be complete in two orbits. Team One, two minutes.”

“Thanks, Ru, I get to be taller than somebody for a change!” Mestral shouldered his pack and led Lhairre and his new medic off to the transporter.

“How come Lhairre gets to go and I don't?” Solkar grumbled.

“Because I whine better,” Lhairre smirked at him. “No, I didn't get that much gas and there were no big holes in me. You stay here this time, and Hana's right. Don't scare people.”

Kirk-Sikar's slaves looked submissive because they were still tired. Both wore dust-colored slave's garments like the one Sikar had been in for two days. He let Sarek go ahead and poked Spock. “Back to taking orders?” That earned him a dirty look and a dirtier, but funny, thought. Spock's outward expression had not changed since the Trellium-D, but the ability to read what he wanted his captain to see had proved interesting in ways Kirk couldn't have fathomed. His actual opinion of Admiral Roskov was worth any ill effects from the toxin.

“Teams Nine and Twelve,” Ru called. “Twelve, stay at your TZ behind that large brick zoo building half a mile from the site until the heavy stops falling. Nine, stay behind the small sand ridge and keep well down.”

They lined up on the pad and dropped to the planet.


	11. More than Slight Miscalculations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lousy rocket design and a leaky zoo; how much better could it get?  
> This is a short chapter because they wouldn't have wanted it to be any longer.

The precaution of transporting into a clump of brush was unnecessary. No one was shooting at them, nor even casting a glance their way. Around parts of last night's battlefield and the ruins of one of the failed launches, the surviving population of Kir wandered in aimless shock. What was left of the Kiri army had entrenched, and occasional rifle fire broke out toward the remnant Shanai Guards' lines several miles away, but there was no real shelling or air attack. People ambled along the road in front of the small hill, picking at bits of discarded gear and dropped weapons, paying no attention to the massive ugly wart on the launch pad.

“How could anyone imagine _that_ was going to work?” The rocket had been designed, if he could call it that, by people looking at diagrams without understanding them. Three big boosters clung to a rocket body made of stacked tanks whose normal job was to store bulk oil. It was hard to think anyone would believe the abomination could lift off, yet the ground around the rocket was littered with discarded vehicles from those who had fled to the impossible craft. The engines began to rumble as they watched, rolling out a cloud of black smoke.

“Desperation,” Sarek said, carefully stretching out behind the dune and digging in. “They were planning for a departure in three years, but their engineers were killed in the army and the conflict drove them to go with what they had in panic.”

“Here is the dust storm,” Spock added. He lay flat on Sikar's other side, close enough for him to feel the ripple of body heat. “It will be difficult for us to find our way.” The dust hit like a sandblaster. “Zero,” he said into his comm. “Zero visibility.”

“Confirm zero viz,” Ru said. “Animals on the way, locking on people.”

The dust storm flashed brilliant gold, then the land heaved like some dinosaur awakening. Flour-fine dust invaded his nose and mouth with a rusty tang. The haboob was still screaming at his back as the blast wave passed by in the other direction. He scrabbled knees and elbows under him to make an air pocket while the wind scrubbed off the overburden of sand. _You were almost certainly all thrown in the same direction. You'd go further because you're lighter_. The dataset under his nose gave him direction and distance to the nearest green signal: Sarek, huddled over Spock. One signal or two? He held out his cloak to block some of the dust and looked down at Spock's pale face. “Blast injury?”

“Unknown. Probable.” Sarek's face was unyielding, but his eyes were pure desperation as he backed off from the attempt at a meld. “Can you get through?”

Whatever had hit the side of Spock's head had stunned the trigeminal nerve on the right side, which Sarek would reach for because he was a lefty. The other side worked.  _Stop it, Spock, you're scaring your dad._ He reached for the vague haze of being that tried to answer, ready to shake it back to shape the way he'd grab a hysterical crewman. “Ah,” Sarek said off in the distance. That would explain it; Sarek's mind was almost as befuddled as Spock's.

_Come on, you two, be still and let your addled brains sort this out_ . It wasn't the most diplomatic way to deal with them, but it seemed to work. Concussions could be a problem for Vulcans if they weren't promptly treated. He double-checked the medications with his padd before he loaded a spray for each of them. Neither reacted. 

Sarek was more or less functional if Sikar gave orders to him slowly. Spock was another matter. Sarek cradled him, devoid of will to move. Even Sikar's imperfect Golic knew begging when he heard it, as if he couldn't feel it in the air: _please, please come back, you're all I have of her_.

Begging had to be the order of the day. “Sa'mi, let me help. Do you know what's wrong?”

When Sarek managed to speak, he still sounded thick and dazed. “The medication, so slowly, working, this concussion. This jaw...the nerve pinched, surely. Yes. Not broken. It needs...um...”

When he felt Spock's face in more detail, the problem was simple and obvious. _For once,_ he thought, _I can fix it, and it had better be right now._ It wasn't even medic training; it brought back memories of a grumbling Chris Pike after the bar fight that sent him into space. He grabbed gauze pads from his kit, wrapped his thumbs, took Spock's face in his hands and pressed down on his back teeth. The dislocated jaw popped back into place and he felt the pinched nerve go live again. Spock stirred and said a couple of suitably bad words in Standard before he tried to reassemble his confused and concussed dignity, not that his grateful father was apt to complain about his language at the moment.

A silent message flicked across the comm in Standard: _Team 1, need help two down._

 _Us too_ , he sent back to Nick. _How bad?_

_Broken bones, bleeding, stuck under rocket parts. It knocked down the building we were behind._

_We got hit with a sidewall. There's a flashing green relative light moving in our direction. You?_

_No. That's a retrieval. You got it?_

_Got it. Mine are concussed but stable. I'll find something to drive and meet you._

_OK. Meantime I'll call Twelve for help._

_Twelve Can't help primary may be dead we're all_

The rest of the message never came. The screaming haboob let up enough for him to hear “Oh. Help. Oh.” He looked to his wounded, sighed and slid out to meet the woman who--

He thought of a better word to use that time. Her mangled femur was draining her life into the sand and he had to throw on a tourniquet before he could think of anything else. “My name isn't Ihnat and I'm not from here,” she whimpered. “I won't die here. That truck. I can die anywhere else.”

“I can do that.” It was hard to look at her face; it could be fixed, given time, but how much time did she have? She pressed an ignition plate for a farm flatbed into his hand. He shoved his men aboard, hoped Sarek could gather enough sense to help the woman and drove off toward the flashing green lights his dataset found in the distance.

The sand near ground zero had fused from the incinerating heat and even the road he drove on was chopped to bits and semiliquid as he circled the blast zone toward Team Nine. Remains of yellow stucco buildings were heaped along the road with one sturdier stone block still partly upright. Mestral, worse for wear, burrowed and shored his way out from under the collapsed building. “'S okay. I know about this roof fall stuff,” he panted.

He pulled Lhairre out, only battered around the ribs and able to stagger to the truck. Their borrowed medic was nursing a badly broken arm. “What's up with Twelve?” he asked as they boosted him onto the flatbed.

“I don't know, they're over by the—” He and Mestral had the same thought at once and even used the same Standard word to describe it. “I got this. Go.” Sikar drove off toward the zoo.

His headlight found a lot of things he'd rather it hadn't, most of all the large male le-matya strolling down the middle of the road with Team Twelve's primary in his jaws. He gunned the engine and made for the big cat, who stared for a long moment before dropping his prey and running. Sarek jumped down, threw the man aboard and banged on the back of the cab, the universal signal for a driver to take off. Since the truck had no glazing left and there were more big cats on the prowl in the bushes, no one had to invite Sikar twice.

A projectile pierced the cab inches in front of his nose, followed by more behind him. A couple of dazed zookeepers were firing at the le-matyas, heedless of the road backstop. He didn't hear any shots hit metal, so he kept going. The low, flat main zoo building was on fire with half of a rocket booster broken open on top of it. Hadn't Twelve said they were--

The night was alive with snarling and growling, long whistles from the air and desperate scurries on the ground. When he had to slow down for a smoking chunk of rocket in the middle of the road, a dark blob ran to them on two legs. One of Twelve's medics leapt onto the back of the vehicle with a scorched body across his shoulders and a full-grown female sehlat in hot pursuit. Someone phaser-stunned the huge animal on the back of the flatbed. In the rear-view he saw Mestral crawl over and nail it in the back of the neck with a hypo. A large bird of prey dove across in front of him, aiming for some small animal that had skittered into the burning brush. He floored the vehicle the way he had the long-ago Corvette, screaming across the desert as he had once bolted down the section road in Iowa, hoping there was no quarry in his path because he didn't intend to slow down.

Miles outside the city, miles from smoke and flames and broken things, the vehicle stopped. It might have run out of power or might have broken down, but in either case it had taken them to a safe place for transport. He started to signal the ship, but it was already clicking at him frantically. He sighed in relief as the beam swept him up.

 


	12. Ow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Complaints about Vid Not As Advertised, scary moments with someone who didn't let on he was wounded, and father and son chats while they're on the way back to their time.  
> And yes, Lhairre is naturally grumpy and blunt to protect that heart of gold.

It had been easier for the ship to beam up vehicle and all than to try separate transport. He didn't think anyone had enjoyed the trip, least of all the outraged hawk chick who had been in the cab of the vehicle with him. The sehlat was still out, fortunately, so he scrambled over her when he went to check on the rest. The improvised operating rooms were a maelstrom of surgeons and nurses with every tech aboard hurrying among them with equipment. The lighting didn't seem to be functioning properly. Its irregular pulses and dims reminded him uncomfortably of a lightning storm in space.

He would have gone to Spock, but a badly disoriented Sarek had him, and no one wanted to try to pry him loose. Everyone else was removed by flying teams of medics. Solkar nearly knocked him down getting to Mestral, who was still sitting on the edge of the now-empty flatbed. He seemed to be Nick again, though a restrained and dimming version. “To ne valje, Janko,” he said quietly.

John wiped his green hands and took Nick's head in them. His dark Syrannite shirt had hidden the blood. Nick leaned his head against John's shoulder and sagged, dead weight. Their borrowed Kiri medic leaned over to look, still cradling his own battered arm in a splint. “I'm still a surgeon. Let's go.”

“What happ--” He caught a glimpse of the wound in Mestral's hip, slanting down and back from his belt line. The zookeepers must have hit him as they fired on the escaped predators, but he had kept tending the others without a word. He wavered, wanting to stay with Spock, suddenly unable to make himself leave Mestral. Sarek caught his eye and sent a clear _Go, I have him_. He hadn't meant to send the sick horror in his heart, but Sikar picked it up perfectly.

He fetched a supply tray and uncovered it for the Kiri while Solkar ran the scanners. The Kiri looked at the results while he made ready. “I must admire his control; that's a painful wound and could easily have been fatal. Very easy repair, though. Be my left hand, Sikar, mine is out of commission.” The surgeon pointed at instruments and began to work fast, if awkwardly one-handed and with pauses for dizziness. “Retract that and hold--ooh--very good; no major damage, only small arteries and a _lot_ of venous bleeding. It would have killed him in another ten minutes, but not now. Ah. We'll take a better look.” Kirk-Sikar wasn't sure he wanted one, but he helped blot and hold pressure while the healer washed out sand and fabric and found the leaks. “We seldom keep souvenirs, but this projectile may have historical value. Now hand me the sealer.--I do not understand how the simulations have been so different from reality. Last night was madness and there were many unexpected elements on that first day. It's not at all like the Guardians of Forever to give any of us bad information.”

“No,” John agreed, “but the committee had full access to the vids for at least a week.”

“You don't think.” The surgeon shuddered. “Forgive me for expressing that. It's unthinkable.”

“The cause is more than sufficient. Maybe we had better think it.”

Kirk knew the captain's unhappiness long before he arrived. Ru was fuming in raw emotion and three loud spoken languages, two of which the refugees around him understood, judging by their squeaks of fear. “--find out they're anywhere _near_ this boat I'm firing them out the torpedo tubes!” Ru came to a dead halt. “How bad, sa'mi?”

“Not nearly as bad as you were.” John's voice quivered with relief along with the rest of him. “We're already finished here.”

“Fortunate indeed,” the Kiri said, pulling up the blanket. “He'll be sore for a few days with no permanent harm. I must point out the simulation claimed we would be alone, and made no mention of zookeepers firing bullets in the dark.”

“Our primary medic was nearly eaten,” Team Twelve's secondary said woodenly. “They're making him a new shoulderblade and putting his ears back on.”

“Ewww.” Sikar regretted every ear joke he had ever made. “Your third?”

“Still unconscious, rather badly burned. He was thrown a long way by the explosion, then a sehlat got to him. You scared it when you came along.”

John relaxed his hold on Nick's psi points. In a few seconds, he stirred dazedly, slapped a hand to his face and groaned a trickle of Standard curses. John said “Didn't they call it a million-dollar wound on Earth? The kind that gets one off duty without causing permanent or significant harm?”

“Without significant harm my ass,” Nick growled.

“Actually, it did chip the iliac crest and went through the gluteus maximus about--” The surgeon stopped. “Oh. You mean it...” he looked for words, “frickin' hurts.”

“That is the adequate explanation. John, you look like hell, sorry, thank you.” The last was almost a whisper. “You better sit. I won't for a while.”

“Let's get you over to one of the sickbay beds,” Ru said.

“None left,” the Kiri medic said. “It's why I was here. Could anyone fix this?”

They had forgotten his broken arm, so all of them attempted to take care of it at once, including Nick, who was too weak to do more than poke at it. To Kirk's own alarm, they were all so rattled that Kirk had to take over. “Fire phasers” would have been more natural than “pull this, hand me that, hold that in alignment while I use this and put the splint back on,” but working as a crew they made the surgeon's repairs to his satisfaction, not to mention great relief.

All the while, Sarek sat crosslegged on the bed of the truck, staring into space, with Spock draped across his arm. Guilt began to wash over Kirk; of the six people on their two teams, five of them were scattered around him more or less hurt while he, for once, stood among them intact. “Noooo!” Ru dope-slapped him lightly. “Don't think it or it'll happen!”

“No guilt,” Lhairre agreed, hacking up half a lung. “Somebody messed with the vids.”

“Are you sure?”

He held up a hand and huffed more oxygen from a wall unit. “I spent twenty-five years being a Romulan. I know schemers when I see them, and I see the signs all over this.”

“That side?”

“Could be, but that's not my best estimate. I think it's an inside job.”

“Council,” Sarek said. At least he could still talk.

Lhairre snorted painfully. “Jorek?”

“I don't think because,” Nick said. He made a little “fill in for me” gesture to the rest, who had been there during Jorek's bondmate's revelation at the beginning of the mission.

“Not if he's changed that much,” John agreed. “I didn't feel anything like that from him, and to be honest I do leave the channel open when he's around due to past encounters. He's not blocking much these days, very sincere about her and she about him. Nonetheless, the problem is likely nearby.”

“It better not be my kid,” Nick muttered. “I find out she did this, I'll take her out myself.”

John rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, I can read Rana like a book and it's _definitely_ not her. She was as ticked as Lia that she couldn't go. Not any of my boys, either.”

“Ow,” Nick held his hip and tried to keep from laughing. “Don't do that. I'm trying to picture Davy scheming. Bad enough we made Skon and Silek arrest the Romulan agent in Frisco.”

Lhairre nearly unjointed himself coughing. “You trying to kill me too? That was like watching C3PO try to be a tough guy. Two of him, worse yet.”

John fiddled with a padd. “I believe you're all correct. One of the elders or an aide who had access. Ninety-seven percent probability, a Master of Gol.”

Kirk-Sikar sat down beside Spock and scratched his head. “Why?”

John tried not to look as disgusted as he felt. “The people we rescued have no clue about Surak and most come from one 'wrong' country or another. Just for that, I hope we bump loose a truckload of lost First Exodus ships.”

There was nowhere to put Spock except for their regular room. Kirk took the mattress from the top bunk and put it on the floor where he could be closer in case they needed him. So far, his retrieved wounded were all recovering decently. He checked on Team One, all on the bottom bed in the next room because no one had the energy to climb up. The Kiri had gone back to his old team. John and Lhairre were asleep; Nick, on the edge of the mattress, reached out to him gently with his mind and then soft words. “Thank you, kid.”

“No need. I wasn't about to leave you alone with these guys so out of it.”

“Or without them.” He grimaced. “Better than getting hurt in the mine. This would have taken weeks to get over instead of a day or two.”

Nick was nothing if not an optimist, but wasn't that how he himself always thought when Bones told him to lie low for a week? “Did you ever?”

“Get hurt in the mine? We all did. Bunged-up backs, knees aching from the cold and damp, hands chewed up, lungs full of dust. When we cut caverns on New Vulcan the machine we use is the one that mashed my ribs in 1967.”

“I can't imagine working in there. What's it like?”

“White, when the lights are on and you've dusted right. When your lights are out, not even space is that pure black. Can't see your hand in front of your face. Cold, most of the year. Wet, whether it's rainy or dry outside. Smells like sulfur and machine oil. You're always dirty and wet, so much for us fussy neat dried-up Vulcans. When the machinery is down, it should be quiet, but it isn't; the rock overhead is working all the time.” Half-dreaming as his voice was, it was also fond. “Guys went in for a job and stayed for their people. The people were the real reason.” He laid a hand to Kirk's arm and showed him the darkness, the bright passageways, the whispers of dripping water and slowly settling rock, the chill and wind from the ventilation system. “Give me a chance, I'll run that Joy 12A anytime even if repair parts are sixteen light years away.” His mouth quirked up at a corner. “Lia's boy is taking over our terraforming. He asked me to teach him to run the continuous miner. Quick learner. If things go too far south, we can smuggle him back and get him a job on my section crew.”

“Had you seen him before?”

“Only pictures. They left just after I thawed out and before he was born. I'm so glad they went. A lot of her Navy died without even being able to get word back about the _Narada_. The planet, four of the grandchildren that lived in Low Springs, fifteen of the great-grands...yeah, gotta fix that.” He clasped Kirk's shoulder in rough affection. What was that strange image flickering across half shielded? “I'll explain that once we're all back and in our right minds.”

He ran the scanner for all three again to check vitals, finding nothing alarming and no one due any medication save for more fluids to replace what Nick had lost. There wasn't much excuse to stay, no matter how much he didn't want to leave. “I'll check on Sarek and Spock. Can I get you anything?”

“Set the water here where I can reach. It hurts to stretch and I'm still a quart low.” That was easy enough. “Jim, you should have seen yourself tonight. The vid looked even better. Wild animals, explosions, Spock hurt, you just _performed_. Your great-grandmother would be so proud.”

He set the odd comment aside, bade Nick goodnight and went around to his own cabin where his concussed people slept. The sense of dread and doom was so heavy that he nearly backed out in spite of fear for Spock. He scanned them again in their uneasy rest and was surprised to find much less physical damage than he would have expected. Spock had given him permission to inquire into his mind whenever he needed, and this seemed like one of those times. He was used to the feel of Spock's healing trance, and this attempt wasn't working well. _How can I help?_

_Out of here. Here is too much. Entirely too much._

That was no surprise.  _Sensory overload?_

_Yes. Painful. He...agony. Everything. He carries everything._

Oh. That made a warped sort of sense. _What would help him?_

_I can't. You, dangerous. Don't try. Ask Ru. Help me up. Can't stay here._

He didn't have to ask twice. Kirk knelt and let Spock reach for his arm for support, mindful of his lessons about accidentally jolting people. When he deposited Spock in the nearest chair, he found Ru taking out his agitation by brewing up an enormous kettle of fragrant soup and an oven full of savory bread in the galley just outside the cabin doors.

Making a Vulcan facepalm had not been one of Kirk's prior accomplishments. He even got Ru to groan mildly as he went to look at the hull static display screen. “I never thought of it and the healthy healers have been so busy, literally with their hands full. Lhairre will be okay. He's not psi-null, but he's not as hot as the rest of us. Nick is too stoned to be damaged. John shouldn't go in the room with Sarek right now and Spock needs to stay out until we fix it. I'd better do it myself.” Ru went to the comm on the wall. “All healers ground and check your patients. We have at least one ungrounded empath.” He saw Kirk's puzzlement. “Maybe more than him. We're all made of stardust and lightning. The _Narada_ was semi-sentient and carrying all that fury, so of course it looked like a giant thunderstorm. This is the minor version. I completely forgot.” He set a mug of hot catnip tea before Spock. “Better now?”

“Yes.” Spock clung to the mug like a life preserver. “I'm useless. Could not manage. I knew Jim would try to fix it and he cannot.”

“Hurt is not useless. It would have been dangerous for you to try. You did the right thing.” Ru cut him a slice of hot bread and handed him a fork. “Now.” He touched the cabin doorframe for a moment, closed his eyes and seemed to still the air around him, then beckoned Kirk into the room.

He saw distant lightning in the room, a faint flickering haze. Without the interference from his tricorder screen, in what should have been the dark, he could see the calm blue glow of Ru's aura bumping into Sarek's huge jumble of red spikes and crackling purple. “Remember when you grabbed him to stop the fight on the _Raptor's Wing_? Remember how you got knocked across the room? That or worse would have happened if you'd tried to ground him tonight without knowing how. You should learn for Spock's sake.”

“Spock is a warrior adept, not an empath.”

“Yet. He'll be as strong as either of us as he gets older, growing into it, the way that works best. Some of us have rotten luck and are born this way. You need to know how to ground him when he can't do it himself.” He put one hand to the door's metal frame, knelt, then touched Sarek's hand. The ripple of energy shot across his arms and poured into the doorframe. Sarek stopped twitching and shivering. The blotchy redness faded and the purple roil settled to a quivering bluish halo. Ru put the palms of both hands on the metal for a bit, then looked down at Sarek. “He'll settle into healing trance now and he won't be so bad in the morning.”

“Man, am I glad you're here. I know so little.”

“Eh, you'd have learned growing up if you'd been around then. Normally John would take care of it as a matter of course, but I think we can excuse him for being a little distracted.”

“Prime told me his Sarek almost fried an entire starship in his old age.”

“As old as his got, thanks to suppressing that hard for that long. They can make all the excuses for Bendii Syndrome they want, but it's damage from repeated ungrounded accumulations like that. Amanda was an adept who could handle it for him. His second wife wasn't and it killed him.”

“Note to self, find him a nice empath,” Kirk shuddered. “That can't happen.”

“Unforgivable,” Sarek murmured. “My apologies.”

Ru sat on the edge of the bed, laying a hand to Sarek's chest. “Bullshit. You got hit in the head and weren't able to think of it. He didn't realize and I forgot. Now go back to sleep.”

Ru touched the doorframe again, closed the door behind them and showed Kirk the display. The size of the power spike was impressive. “That would not have been good had I tried it.”

“Knocked across the room would have been a _good_ outcome.” Ru sat at the table. Spock looked better, not that it would have taken much. “Any good catnip hallucinations?”

He rubbed the side of the jaw that had been dislocated. “No, but it did dispose of the headache, my knee is much better and the bread is very good. I should be able to go on our side mission.”

“You can't go like that.”

Spock was too tired to mask heartbreak even had Kirk not felt it. “I can fly the ship.”

Ru's voice was gentle. “Could, maybe, should, no.”

“But it needs to happen.” Guilt, shame, desperation—Kirk had to offer.

“Can I help?” Both of them were primed for an automatic “no.” “Wait. You know I _want_ to help. Does it absolutely require one of you?”

“Well, it...” Ru hesitated, looked to Spock, shook his head. “No. It isn't even that difficult, physically, it might...Spock, he might actually be better. Sarek will still be in trance, so he won't catch on, and they won't know him yet.” They explained. For the third time, when a S'chn T'gai asked the incredible of him, Kirk said yes, and for the third time, after his agreement he doubted his own sanity.

 

The return slingshot was a technical challenge, because they had retrieved far more weight than anticipated. Everyone aboard ship seemed to want to help run the numbers, but to Kirk's relief (would he still be Sikar, after?) all of them agreed within a fraction. Most of the patients, upon having the process explained, decided they'd rather sleep through it. Kril'es Mak thought it would be fascinating, so he stuck on one of Ru's anti-dizziness patches. When the healers realized they had enough, so did everyone else who planned to be awake for the event. John was trying to convince Nick not to, with his usual luck arguing with his t'hy'la. “Oh, come on, Nick. You don't really.”

“I've had enough of being knocked out for ages. Who knows what position I'd wake up in? I slept crooked on this sucker and it's killing me.”

“Here, then.” His wife ambushed Nick with a hypo to the lower back. Hana looked as pleased with herself as Bones always did. “Long-acting painkiller. With a direct hit to the spine, it'll keep your hip to a dull roar for most of a week.”

“That I can go for. That, and some coffee once we get on the other side.”

In his cabin, Spock looked stiff and achy, but not as moribund as when he was carrying the huge referred static charge. “Jim.” He moved over, indicating the edge of the wider bed. “You could fall off the top bunk.” _And you wouldn't be here in case_.

He lay down and looked over at the purple and green half-mask. “That is one beautiful shiner. Has the dizziness cleared?”

“As soon as I put the patch on. The jaw is much better. Your adjustment was well performed.”

“Bones will make so much fun of me because you can get your mouth open again.”

“I believe he would prefer it to remain closed.”

“Shras.” Sarek was not asleep after all. When both of them thought _Oh?_ he went on. “He enjoys arguments, but he does not enjoy losing them.”

Spock didn't try to turn his head; without looking, Kirk knew his neck was stiff on the injured side. The urge to reach over and fix it was irresistible. Spock did not object, and it worked. “What was that you said, about him and your arrival after va'Pak?”

Sarek stared at the ceiling. “We beamed into the building to avoid the press. Shras, of all beings, was in the lobby. He said nothing, walked beside me down the hall and accompanied me to our--my quarters. I found myself unable to remember how to open the closet door, so he did that. I could not remember how to close it, so he did that. We went into my office and I sat behind the desk but could not recall what I had meant to do. He got the decanter of ale and poured me a drink. His hands were shaking worse than my own. There were blue tears streaming down his face. 'You can't, so I will,' he said. Oddly, I needed not explain.”

“Not so odd,” Spock replied. “When their wife Silka died.”

“His quartet's secondary female. A rare charming and agreeable Andorian.”

Spock was gentle, but insistent. “There is more to the story. Her funeral.”

Was that a sigh out of Sarek? “Her death was a sudden and bitter loss to them.”

“Yes. And your part in that?”

That was definitely a sigh, with a side of exasperation. “There is a time limit to Andorian funeral rites and a bit of music that must be played for proper respect. The necessary musician could not be reached in time, and recordings are not used. It was a short piece, easily learned.”

“An act of kindness.”

“Very nearly a requirement, was it not? Your point?” The Great Wall of Vulcan was imploding, folding his arms in his last effort to curl into himself.

“You are capable of that. In fact, as I review the events which transpired between us some years ago, I find very little that was not informed by some attempt at kindness, however it turned out.” Sarek didn't answer, his breath tight and sharp. “Prime's Sarek died a very unhappy man because he believed himself a failure. I am forewarned and will not let that be your path.”

Sarek uncurled the fingers of one hand to look at them as if they were inherently defective. “I have held many lives in my hands these past days. Not always successfully.”

“You need to talk to Bones,” Kirk said. “He and I have had enough of those discussions for me to know I never want to be a doctor, and he has to be.”

“Interesting, coming from a starship captain.”

“We fight enemies we can see. Yours are unseen.”

“Too similar to diplomacy.”

The comm chimed. “Attention all hands: slingshot in one minute. You know the drill now. Those who practice a religion may give thanks for the guy who invented these patches.”

“It was all still there,” Sarek said. “As I remembered. Only not radioactive.”

“Or as hot as it was in our time,” Spock agreed.

“She was not there yet. I couldn't have gone were she there.”

“The Science Academy did not yet exist.”

“So you could turn them down.”

“And we could argue about it.”

Their voices were flat, but Kirk felt the warm undercurrent. “Just so. I am informed that some fathers have compliant children.”

“It was your misfortune to have quite the opposite.”

“On the contrary. I rather enjoy the lack of predictability.”

“Thirty seconds,” said the comm.

“I haven't punched you in over a decade.”

“A regrettable omission,” Sarek mused.

“When someday we reverse the implosion, we will not reverse the changes.”

“I am aware of that. Too much has happened. We are no longer a people who hide on one planet and speak to no one else, nor do we pretend we do not know who the Romulans are.”

“Ten seconds.”

Their shoulders touched; they locked into their calm. It seemed easier since Sarek knew what to expect, not that any of them looked forward to

foul-smelling screams strawberry explosions liquid fire solid gold rain spinning melting forever forever forever surely almost back BANG.

The bone-jarring crunch had not been a part of any slingshot in Kirk's experience. When his eyes and ears worked, the ship's alarms were flashing and shrieking. Instinct made him roll to his feet. Ru was right about thanks for the patch inventor, because going vertical did not result in nausea. He dove around the door to look at the panel just as the comm chime went off.

“I have good news and bad news which may be good news. The good news is, when we ran into the ship in the anomaly, it didn't knock us off target time. We have arrived just when we should be. The bad news is that we hit a large object and were very fortunate our shields held. We have full structural integrity, unsure about the other vessel. All hands stand by for rescue if need be.”

He had to think about the tags on the panel for a second, but managed to key up the viewscreen. Before he could say what he wanted to, Ru came back on: “Captain Kirk to the bridge, please.”


	13. A Fine Harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all collisions are bad ones.   
> This is where it starts to get joyously silly, and I refuse to apologize :)

He ran the short flight of stairs even if he did have a lingering sense of his feet not quite being attached to the rest of him. “What's up, Ru?”

“It's the _Surak_.” He pointed to his own display. “Packed with life forms. _Incredibly_ packed.”

The ambassador's fast ship was crowded beyond belief, almost certainly with some combination of Sarek's family, staff and Science Academy people. Ru nodded, no doubt having heard his thought.

A faint and fading voice hailed them. “VSS _Surak_. I am Soran...we need help.”

At the mention of that long-lost familiar name Ru closed his eyes, swallowed hard and keyed his comm. “VSS _Surak_ , this is Air Galactica transport _Shaishonna_. Soran, it's Ruven. Status?”

“Venting atmosphere from the cargo bay. Uncertain damage to the seals. We need help.”

“We have it, shuttles and transporter coming.” He waved to Kirk and pointed to the transporter controls, which even with their Vulcan labeling were close enough to Starfleet. “Souls on board?”

“Three hundred and fifty-nine mortal plus the secondary katric ark.”

Ru muted the mic and allowed himself to whistle softly. “Injuries known?”

“Many, even before this latest collision...we left, as _osu_ Sarek ordered...what happened?”

“You have been in an anomaly for over a year. It's hard to explain, but it is very, very agreeable to hear from you. We have a large medical staff on board and more help on the way. I warn you it is quite crowded over here, but we are ready to commence beaming.”

“Understood, and do commence.” The voice was breathy and strained.

Kirk and Ru were both gobsmacked for a frozen second or two. It wasn't longer—they were both captains—but in that instant of staring and making helpless little gestures they both came close to screaming and both understood. One of the young aides had guessed and come up, so Kirk handed over the bridge transporter controls and explained in a few words. The young woman nodded and got straight to work with a will. Ru said “I'll get a tractor beam on. Soon as our mothership is in range...”

“Air Galactica _Shaishonna_ , this is VHC _Seleya_ Himself. Are you in need of assistance?”

They high-fived each other as Ru grabbed the mic. “Yes, Rai, and it's a beautiful reason. Did you see what we ran into on our way out?”

“Aah! Isn't that _fabulous_? I'm not picking up any damage to either your or their glowy parts.”

“We're not either. It looks as if they're torn up from the Day. We did hit them with our shields when we knocked them loose. I haven't had time to look for anything else that came out with us.”

“Half a dozen small ships that are _really_ old, running on impulse power and not in the best condition, plus two more of your pretty black pearl Air Galactica transports intact but really _seriously_ overcrowded from va'Pak we got when we deliberately bumped a signature. We tractored them in and my people are trying to get them safely parked on the cargo deck. How's your capacity?”

Since they were alone, Ru rested his head on his fist and took a deep breath. Kirk understood; the moment when a ship was no longer on its own could be almost as emotional as the heat of battle. The captain gathered himself and went on. “Overloaded. We had a really interesting, productive time of it. There's one more pickup to make, if you know what I mean, provided we still can.”

“We're all ready and the _Kir_ and _Gol_ are right behind us. As for that side trip, instead of your shuttle I happen to have a little warp-capable dart that flies like a dream down here on the cargo deck, and it would be really nice of you to get it out of the way for me.”

“Room for three?”

“But of course, sweetie. Go do what you need to do and we'll meet up in a few, 'kay?”

Ru motioned to Kirk. “Keep Sarek in what dark we can until we see the sitch, and I'll take care of the docking?”

“It's a plan.” By the time he hit the steps, John was blinking and looking around at the door to their room. “Transporter room, osu, please don't ask.” He knew that little half-nod was agreement, but he had forgotten how fast John could move.

Nick propped himself in the doorway. “What's going on this time?”

“We brought ships out of the warp field. The _Surak_ is one of them.”

“Soran,” he said, not as a question. “Banged up worse than I am but he'll do. Go tell him I'll be there, don't have much run in me today.” Spock had dragged himself out of bed, so he grokked the situation and took Nick's arm over his shoulders. Kirk ducked under the wounded side and they took off down the hall to the door. Nick didn't have to ask; they set him down gently so he could stroll in looking functional, muttering “Man, you two are _good_.”

“Too much practice,” Kirk said, and even Spock nearly smiled.

Once again, the room was heaped with broken Vulcans and a few others from the embassies that had surrounded the Foreign Relations Department in ShiKahr. Most of the injuries were relatively minor and treatable concussions, broken bones and sprains, the result of being thrown from chairs or knocked down when the ship sustained damage from the broken planet. As soon as Kirk hit the door, someone handed him care of a human woman with a sprained back. She gritted her teeth as he helped her slide to a bed. “It beats being dead. What happened? Was there much damage?”

He tried to explain quietly, but the rest of the room was already getting the word from a dozen sources. At the same time, one of the healers waved for attention. “Who knows Andorian medicine?” The unexpected youngster was trying not to writhe in pain, which given Andorian warrior stoicism meant it really wasn't good. “Someone get Sarek. He has some experience.”

“Osu Sarek is here? He lives?” someone cried.

“I am.” Sarek shoved the door aside and froze in place.

He didn't fall. Kirk wasn't sure he could have managed not to. Spock took him to the injured Andorian to distract him from the hurried action over Soran in the far corner. Sarek had just enough of the language without a translator to assure the young woman that he was giving her pain medication not because she wasn't brave but because she had already proven her courage, and convince her she would be functional after her badly broken arm and leg healed. All the while, he was stealing glances past her shoulder at what was going on with the mass of people he had known for years. A healer with a better translator came up, took readings and sent an aide for the equipment they would need.

“Who are your parents?” he asked the young woman, who had begun to relax. “This may help.” He flipped his padd out and dialed it one-handed. “Is Ambassador Shras available? I apologize for the hour, but he will soon think the cause is sufficient.” He waited, still looking over to the heated debate among the healers. “Shras. Are Seela and Jiran at the embassy?...I have news for you all. Thelan is alive, if not exactly well, and has given a good account of her courage. No, I am not, but I understand why you think so.” He handed the padd to Thelan. “Talk to your father. He's going to get the others.”

Having extricated himself, Sarek wove through the crowd to the corner. “Oh, dear,” said Kirk's patient. “I hope Soran isn't as badly hurt as I'm afraid he is.”

“You do _not_ have my permission.” Sarek had thrown on his best I Am The Ambassador And You Will Obey voice. “That is unacceptable. You _will_ recover.”

Spock came back, rubbing at the bruised side of his forehead. “He ordered Soran not to die. It appears Soran has, as always, complied.”

“How bad is he?”

“Between injuries and shock, physically poor. Mentally, no worse than the rest of us.” Spock looked in that direction again. “He has been Father's aide since they were in their teens. Vulcans seldom speak of these matters, but if it is not possible to retrieve Mother, this will help.”

“The souls, the people...such a small fraction, but every bit seems so huge now.” He had leaned against Spock without realizing it, nor consciously registering it when Spock not only did not mind but also leaned back until they propped each other up. _Good Heavens, we must look like John and Nick._

“Indeed.” Not for the first time, he knew what Spock meant when he said Vulcan emotions were much more powerful. _And you are here, and thank you t'hy'la_ was so clear that he nearly heard it aloud rather than feeling it.

The parts of the Vulcan fleet that could be spared from patrol sped into range, along with Uhura calmly checking in with Spock (calmly on the surface; it was evident she had sensed something wrong from across several parsecs and numerous centuries, and was not entirely trusting of his explanation that any damage was now minor and dealt with) promptly and impatiently followed by Bones yelling over her shoulder demanding to know what the hobgoblins had done with his captain. His favorite hobgoblin answered. “Doctor, he is undamaged. You will be glad to know I am not.”

“Yeah, and now I know how to fix it! What happened?”

Raising an eyebrow hurt, judging by the way Spock rubbed at it. “I was hit with a rocket. As I told Uhura, the captain has already completed what few repairs were necessary in admirable fashion. You will have ample opportunity to practice on others with your stone knives and rattles.”

“Your cousin Dr. Saeihr is here to help. By the way, _she_ admires my medical skills.”

“In that case, I must question her judgment.”

Kirk dearly wished to stay and listen, or better yet beam over, catch hell from Bones and see whether Rai's ship had any good blue ale, but he needed to meet Ru where the ships were docked. “Who'd we leave to run this thing?”

“The _Seleya_ will handle it while we're docked.”

“The _Seleya_ can control this ship?”

“Um...” Ru slapped his own forehead. “I forget, you have clearance. Any Vulcan Navy vessel can control any Vulcan merchant ship. That was another reason we had to get these big cruisers out of Kir Haran. Half of my family could hack in, so the Romulans surely have somebody left who could.” He opened the hatch cautiously, nodded and leaned through only to find himself nose to nose with the very admiral they had been hoping to avoid.

When Lia was anxious, the external impression was of an angry monument. “Where is my Lhairre and just where are you two going?”

“To look at the damage,” Ru said smoothly. “We believe our shields held, but we can't be too careful with this much at stake.”

“Speaking of shields, I hope yours were down intentionally.” The monument turned its stone face and blazing eyes on Kirk. “And you _need_ to go with him.”

He wasn't sure he could manage not to shrink into the floor. “Ae'i, rekkhai.”

The stone melted. “Be careful, both of you. I hope it works. If it doesn't, be safe. I'll keep my brother confused provided I can let go of Lhairre that long. He doesn't seem too bad, but--”

Ru didn't reach toward her, but his tone was a hug. “But hormones and it's Lhairre and your brother and nephew got a nasty crack on the head. Honest, Lhairre is fine now. They're all getting over it nicely or we wouldn't leave them, you know that.”

She led the way to the cargo bay. “Head knows, heart is having a fit and the baby is frying me because I let something be wrong with her sa'mi. Now. Getting your target would be wonderful, but not if it means trading for either of you.” She tried to smile, touching Kirk's ear with the tip of a finger. “I think you should keep them, but Dr. McCoy is voicing his objections loudly.”

He could only imagine a Bones rant while he was surrounded by green-blooded living computers. “Did you scare him properly, I hope?”

“Oh, I went all Admiral Hellfire on him. It was cute how scared he gets without showing it. He has no idea we know, either. He hasn't even figured out we don't all follow Surak. We Jaroks have been so very restrained just to torment him.” She coded the dart open and leaned into the cockpit, demonstrating the controls. “Close enough to standard. Just...you know.”

“I know, Aunt Lia. We'll be back in fifteen minutes, unless we get back before we left.” He slid into the passenger seat and buckled in, hoping his patch would still work and thinking at Spock: _Not for just anybody, you know?_

The dart rounded out of the vicinity and flashed back to the sun. “Ten seconds,” Ru warned. “Here goes nothing.” Nothing, and everything, in all its ghastly profusion. With only the two of them aboard, there was no need to stand on ceremony or even pretense. When they flipped out of the nightmare, Ru was already groaning “Shit, I hate that!”

“You and me both. But the patches work. Best idea you've ever had.”

“Time tastes terrible. It was raspberry vinaigrette over sardines.”

“The inside of my eyelids melted and caught fire. On the bright side, we're when we should be.”

“Within a thousandth of a second. We're good, if nothing else.” Ru keyed numbers onto the console. “The ship with that identifier should be way off on the other end of its run and it's nothing the planetary defenses would alert on even if they did look. We're cloaked from anyone coming by who could get a visual. Good thing. I forgot how busy it was here.”

Orbiting Vulcan was all but a celestial traffic jam. “So.”

“Yeah. I'm going into powered orbit, so fifteen minutes and four seconds. The smoke from the crash is on the horizon. They went way short when the planetary autopilot misdirected them. Computer glitch was the excuse. No one believed it. I'm barely old enough to remember everyone hurrying around trying not to broadcast being upset. T'Rana and Mama Shai were trying to get out to that little clinic with its limited equipment. They weren't able to get an autopsy because the body was already gone. Either someone disposed of it...”

“Or we're supposed to be here.” He picked up the equipment and squeezed into the dart's small transporter, which was the size of a cramped shower. “At least we trained with these.”

“Glohhasi mnekha,” Ru said, and hit the button.

He solidified far east of Kir, out beyond the long-gone zoo, not far from where their panicked flight had ended the previous night some centuries ago. A small rural clinic in dusty farmland was polluted with press and too many vehicles in the staff lot, likely call-ins when the crash had happened where nothing ever did. He strode in purposefully, thinking _I belong here and know what I am doing_ , and it worked; no one challenged him or even looked his way.

Sarek's memories were so sharp in his mind that he knew which room to check. “But he took a breath. He took one breath!” The young man was a mess in every imaginable way; it was odd to see him that much younger, his hair still black, but painful to see him in despair again and badly injured. He was on his feet by some alchemy, because he should have collapsed.

“Osu, it won't work. He's too small and we don't have facilities.” The nurse easily removed the baby from his weak and trembling hands. “I grieve with thee, but her life is at stake here and so is yours.” She saw Sikar's properly colored scrubs. “Here. Deal with this. I need to get back to this code.”

He took the handful of blanket. She turned her back for an instant and he gave the baby a couple of puffs of breath and leaned to Sarek quickly, keeping his voice to the smallest whisper: “You will see him alive again, not soon,” before he ducked out. There was a small closed room; he dove in and leaned his back to the door, breathed into the baby's mouth again, stuffed the fragile scrap into the warm fluid in the artificial womb, connected the umbilical cord, turned on the life support and clicked his com twice to let Ru know. The still little form enraged him. What had he done to deserve being ripped from his mother months too soon? His father's hands had cradled him with ease. His eyelids were still fused, his ears folded, his veins visible through skin thin as tissue paper...

...and one of his hands stirred as Spock's fresh, artificially oxygenated blood began to turn him from white to green. Sikar closed the artificial womb and watched through the port, trying to dampen his outrage at what had happened so the tiny mind would not be alarmed into leaving. The noise in the next room carried even over the hospital dampers; he knew the racket of a code in progress and Sarek's all too familiar silent howl of grief. Someone in the hallway said “We need to get him out of there. Take him to this room,” and before he could be afraid of what to do next, the beam brought him away.

Ru snatched the womb from his shoulder as soon as he was solid. An empath had a much better chance of protecting the baby during the slingshot that was already laid in. He had just enough time to strap in before Ru started the countdown. “One of these days we'll think of a better way!” he howled as he emerged from an oozing swamp of bad greenish music flavored with tequila. “How is he?”

“Katra still in body and very confused. Did it go smoothly?”

“Incredibly. The nurse actually jammed him into my hands and told me to take him.”

“Some things about this timeline...I swear. Losing Vulcan should be worse to me than it is. I keep thinking—just around the edge of my vision is the answer; just out of sight, not out of reach.”

“Nick knows something. Actually, I have the feeling he knows several interesting things.”

“Yeah, but the old sneak isn't telling yet, and he's got shields like a battleship when he wants to. He's teasing. Battlefield psi warriors are supposed to be able to pull info from anybody, but he's got me whipped. Best thing about the mistake that is me is that I get him as a great-grandfather.”

“Oh, that's right, otherwise he wouldn't be. I'd claim him myself if I could.” He leaned over to watch the baby, who was now a good hybrid yellow and steady in the womb. “These things really do work. That amazes me.”

“Judy said if we could get him into the bag, the rest would be fairly uneventful because the new technology is so good. I hope she's right. She usually is. Even when she isn't, I let her think so.” Ru thumbed up the picture of his unborn daughter again. “He's nine weeks older than Kariin, a few days younger than Sarek was when he was born. Who knows how that would have come out if we'd had one of these things back when...but I asked, and the Guardians said absolutely not. Too much changed because of what he and his mother went through.”

“What was she poisoned with? Did they ever find out?”

“Three guesses and the first two don't count. Massive amounts of Trellium-D, plus lesser but still ordinarily fatal quantities of an old Klingon drug that is very safe for them and most humans but fairly destroys Vulcan livers and kidneys. They put both in her vitamin blends. Whoever did it was trying to make sure she not only died, but burned out slowly and in misery.”

“Romulans,” he said.

Ru kept a hand on the bag inside the case. “Or somebody getting back at her for helping T'Pau back when. The civil war wasn't an obvious hot shooter for long, but it went on for another century or so and a lot of people died of lead poisoning.”

“I don't think it's over.”

“I don't either. Too much has happened and all of it involves screwing around with time. That's why I know there has to be an answer to Vulcan being a big empty spot.”

“Maybe not Amanda...but the dog came out of the transporter, months later on the wrong pad and after it had been used a lot. At least we went back and got these people off the--” He wouldn't have been surprised had his mind's brakes squealed. “I'm an idiot.”

Ru stared at him. “And I'm a bigger one. How did none of us get that?”

“We can start with a small town, can't we? To make sure it works? Ask the Guardians?”

“Of course!” He patted the fluid bag inside the case. Kirk could hear him sending calm and comfort to his baby half-brother. “Was that your idea, James?”

“He might be thinking more clearly than the rest of us put together.” The cargo bay doors of the big ship opened to let them in and Ru set them down gently, as he expected.

What they hadn't expected was a welcoming committee. Nearly the whole family was there, minus Nick and Sarek. John beat everyone else to the ship and snatched away the artificial womb to lay hands on the baby, or at least his bag. A tiny happiness of recognition bubbled up. “You've had a rough day,” John said, “but we'll take care of you now.”

Large hands grabbed Kirk around the shoulders. “That was nuts!” Bones shook him lightly. “You are out of your freaking mind. It has to be the ears. How is he?”

“How should I know? I'm a captain, not a doctor!” That earned him a loving bash on the side of the head.

Bones turned on the chief healer. “Solkar, what do you think?”

“Other than far too early to be out of this thing, remarkably well, thanks to his brothers.”

He felt Spock's mind before the gentle bump against his back. “He is alive, then.”

“Very much so.” John turned the case to let him see the viewing port.

Spock happened to be holding Uhura's hand and was not disposed to let go. 'He touched the tips of his other hand's fingers to the pane, where the baby reached back. “James. I have long wished to meet you.” _Thank you thank you I could never have asked you to do this t'hy'la thank you_.

“And that's all?” Bones squeaked.

Kirk shushed him and hauled him over to the wardroom. “You can't hear, but they're screaming happy right now and it's all they can do to hide it. The k'turr might start indiscriminate hugging at any second. Speaking of.” He threw his arms around Bones. “I have to or I'll go even crazier. Man, it's good to be back to now.”

Bones didn't mind, not that he had to say it. “Spock's aunt told me I might enjoy the petting zoo on the cargo deck. She's a piece of work. Look out for the giant bear-thing.”

“Good advice. She bit off a guy's ears, but they put them back on.”

“Admiral T'Lia, or the bear-thing?” He rather ostentatiously felt Kirk's forehead. “No fever, and you scan fine considering you still have those stem cells roaming around.”

“They've been great. Nothing I ate, drank or touched has tried to kill me.”

“I was hoping. Can't get used to you looking so yellow. Have you actually slept lately?”

“Yes, believe it or not, and nobody can say we haven't been eating well. Spock's brother is one hell of a cook and so is Mestral. They have some kind of instinct to stuff people as full as possible at all times, and then offer them really, _really_ good booze.”

“Hand it to Captain Rai. He has a beer brewery that turns out better stuff than you buy, and the honeymint is terrific. I mentioned missing bourbon. He makes that down in the science department and he's worked out a way to make it mellow faster.”

“Hang around with people who can drink alcohol and never notice. That may be the even better part of his stem cells. I don't get sloshed as fast now.”

“Too bad I can't. I had to check on you and Pointy out there, but I'd better get back to work since you brought back everything but the kitchen sink.”

“There might be one of those from where they grabbed the small town off the rocket. I'm pretty sure you shouldn't try to build spacecraft out of oil storage tanks. They were kinda desperate.”

Bones started down the hallway, but laid hands on him again. “For those three days? So was I. And don't tell the hobgoblin, but I worried about him too.”

“Gotcha.” Telling Bones the hobgoblin in question already knew and appreciated it would have taken more explanation than his busy doctor could take right then. “Hey, Dr. Saeihr's single!”

He called back “Hit on her yourself. Her mother might kill me!”

Kirk went back to stand in the edge of the cargo bay where he could watch the reunion. The joy wasn't only Spock's family mobbing the baby; husbands, wives, children and friends among the rescued from the small ships were finding one another, describing what had happened and trying not to hug, mostly failing. The cause was more than sufficient.

“Sorry,” Nick said almost in his ear. “He got away from me. Oh, crap, I hate this.”

It was an incomprehensible statement. “You hate--?” He was nearly bowled over by Sarek, who had no intention of letting anything get in his way. “It'll be okay...whoooooa.”


	14. The Guardians Speak, Sort Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick is incoherent but useful, and they're all crazy. Don't worry, it's going to get worse.  
> For the life of me, I cannot remember whose Soran was to begin with. He's barely getting a chance to walk through, but I couldn't stand the thought of him being all implodimated even if getting him run over by a starship was only marginally better.

Nick clung to the doorframe to stay upright. His hazel eyes had gone black from dilated pupils. “Important safety tip. Never tell John's wife anything hurts.”

Kirk had seen that blown-away look before, in the mirror after some of Bones' unfortunate efforts to relieve one injury or another. “I bet it doesn't hurt now.”

“Actually it does, and I'm too whacked to control it, but the rest of the effects distract me enough. I want to go see the kid, but I'd scare him to death.” He held his forehead as if he thought his brain might fall out. “Why in the hell would anybody do this for fun?”

John's wife caught up with him, as distressed as a Marine nurse ever got. “I have never seen that reaction to diazine. It's in the literature, but I never treated one. Nick, I had no intention.”

“I know, Hana. You don't do rotten stuff to patients and you wouldn't hurt me.” He let go of the doorframe and tried to stand up straight. “Hoo, damn. How long will it last?”

Kirk knew and cringed. “Unfortunately...something over a week,” she squeaked. “Let me think. There's no antidote. I could numb the wound, but it's so close to the nerve.” She thumbed through her padd helplessly. “Cargicin might help, but if you're having that reaction it could make you really sick.”

“It would,” Kirk agreed. “Go ask Bones. He's going to tell you there's nothing to do but wait it out. This is exactly the reaction I have to it, which tells me it'll be all he can do not to kick puppies and bite the heads off live chickens for a week. How about an ice pack?”

Nick stashed the cold pack in his hip pocket, which was in the right spot. “Should I just go up to everybody I meet and apologize in advance?”

“There's a bright side, sa'mekh'li. You have plausible deniability for anything you say.”

Wild light gleamed in Nick's eyes. “Interesting. Fascinating. And soooo _useful_.”

 

At length the crowd around Sarek began to dissipate, leaving him kneeling on the floor, eyes closed, holding the baby in his cocoon. Kirk found space on the floor with Spock and Ru, none of them speaking nor needing to until Sarek finally murmured “You said it wouldn't be soon.” Kirk nodded tightly. “I did not know you. You seemed to be a kinsman.”

“He is,” Spock said. _T'hy'la, brother, always_.

“When she took him from my hands, I should have lashed out.”

“Not in that condition. You didn't even seem to know you were hurt, let alone how badly.”

“He mattered. She mattered. I did not. They would not listen. They failed to realize he was being born because of the trauma. She was human and they had no idea how to care for her.”

Spock touched the viewing port lightly, and the baby bumped a hand against it. “If you encounter such a situation again, you will know what to do.”

“Will I? Nonetheless, he is here now.” With his head bowed, Sarek looked more like his sons than Kirk could recall. The bruises on his and Spock's faces mirrored one another. “He may regret it.”

“He will not. If you made mistakes, you now know better.” Spock reached to his father's elbow, lifting him to his feet. “You should lie down. We will take him with us.”

“Do that. Meanwhile, I have a ship to take care of,” Ru said. “Even if we did offload a lot of the patients, there's still a zoo downstairs.” He glanced at Kirk. _I'll take care of them, don't worry._

 _I know you will. Thank you._ “I'll see what I can do to help them get people settled over here,” Kirk said. “You three rest. Ru, you should too. Good to meet you, James.”

Spock and Sarek staggered off toward the transporter. Ru let them get out of sight, turned and wrapped his arms around Kirk in a rib-endangering hug. “They won't, even though they want to, but I will. Thank you. And don't tell me you had to, but I'm glad you did.”

He couldn't help laughing out of nervous relief. “Scariest rescue of the bunch, don't you think?”

“Oh, we'll come up with a worse one. S'chn T'gai crazy.” He set Kirk down and went off to the transporter, still smiling.

 

The _Seleya_ was large, carrying its extended cargo bay, and anticipating a heavy patient load, but their unexpected success had strained even its well-planned response. Nick was able to check patients in and forward records without growling at anyone, so he took care of that while Kirk looked for those who should not be in the same area. Some of the sorting proved to be interesting, with a Kiri general the particular target of much loathing from her own soldiers, one of whom tried her best to smother her erstwhile leader with a plastic bag. Separating the warring factions had been in the plans; separating the not very skilled commanders from their own people hadn't been.

He had a couple of patients moved to keep them out of sight of one another in case they woke up prematurely. A small commotion as the staff moved beds caught his eye; it was the captain from their third night, accompanied by her lieutenant. When the staff stepped back, he went over. “Khart'lan Rian, it is agreeable to see you awake.”

“It's more than agreeable to me.” Her lieutenant smiled up at him. “She is back. Weak, and not amenable to speaking much, but she is here again.”

The captain rubbed her eyes with a badly aimed hand and groaned out a request for information on where she was and what had happened. She phrased it as Kirk himself often did, adjectives and all. He responded with the answers he would want, as bluntly and simply as possible. “She wasn't making it up,” Rian sighed. “I was hoping she had lost her mind.”

“We all move to the future. You've just done more than a millenium worth of it at once.”

“Everyone there was pissed off at me anyway,” Rian said. “Except her.”

“No, the troops thought you were fine. We weren't exactly popular with our families,” the nurse interjected. “Do you know how they fared after we left them?”

“Your insurance kept your parents decently for their time, your sister-in-law came back from the war alive and well, and they lived ordinary quiet lives.”

“And their descendants?”

This was the hard part, one he had already handled many times. “Many, until va'Pak. Now, each of you is the sole survivor of your clan. We're working on that.”

He tried to explain about the chances of fixing everything, the new planet, the opportunities. The two of them listened sadly and at length Captain Rian said “Ah, well, for now it's just us, then.”

“Until,” he insisted. “If there's one thing I've learned, it's that terrible situations can get better. Also, nobody will care if you live together, want to have children together, or how you do that.”

Rian goggled at him. “Whoa. Wait. Children. Of ours! We can do that now?”

“Sure. You can have them together, which would take a lab assist of course, or however you want otherwise.” The couple stared at each other, mentally whipping the idea back and forth. They were no longer aware of his presence, so he moved on.

The woman he had picked up after the explosion was muzzily aware. “The leg wasn't as bad to fix as you'd think, but it took seven hours to put her face back to rights,” Bones said. “We brought a plastic surgeon and it's a darned good thing because she's far too pretty to go through life with that much scarring. By the way, who's the Mak guy who keeps wanting to see her?”

“Her name isn't...” but yes, it was; once again, time had pulled in the one he needed. “Never mind. She was a prisoner of war and Mak was trying to get them out of a bad situation partly of his own making. Things were way too interesting back then, you know that?”

Nick limped up. “They're about to get more so. The Guardians said yeah.”

“They did? Why didn't they tell us in the first place?”

“Because their Temporal Prime Directive doesn't work like that. They'll answer _exactly_ what you ask, so you have to think it through and ask the right questions. In this case, Chi—the one on duty at home, helluva nice being--said 'I thought you idiots would never catch on!' so they're set up for us when we get in.” Nick shook his head in a familiarly wobbly way. “Hoo. We'd better send most of them through direct to New Vulcan or the logistics will get us.”

“We have a day and a half to plan, don't we? I don't imagine anyone will want to wait.”

“We may need all of it. Oh well, I wasn't sleeping anyway.”

The meeting Nick called on the cargo deck amid the heaps of scrap left from various half-fixed vessels might have been a typical tense affair had he been able to control himself. He couldn't, and Kirk suspected he had stopped trying. His woozy explanation staggered to a stop and John took over.

“What he meant, beyond all the verbiage about horses the Romulans rode in on, was that we have considered the Guardians of Forever a good alternative for sending one or two people back at a time in controlled circumstances, but not for mass movement. For example, opening a direct portal to the battlefield would have exposed us to unfortunate consequences, such as half of an army trying to run through while shooting. However, as Ru and Sikar realized, the people we need to remove from Vulcan are not fighting. Vulcan families tend not to accumulate a lot of possessions, so except for the farmers most can be ready in a few hours because they're already getting prepared for a big eruption. Having them bring their belongings will be of psychological help and will also take much stress off the temporary relocation. Arranging the breakpoint to get the planet back may take a few months, but there's no reason to have everyone lying around dead meanwhile.”

“Plus un-imploding it may not be pleasant for anybody in the neighborhood at the time,” John agreed. “You've already asked about a test run?”

“The Guardians say no need. They also hinted, really really...really...really...” Nick had lost his place and shook the cobwebs out of his head. “Strongly, that we don't tell anyone off the ship. These ships. Here. Because some pain in the ass fake Earth actual Klingon admiral had been snick...sneaking around asking them how to make sure Vulcan never made a comeback of any kind.”

Spock looked up. “Heh.” That single word managed to convey... _oh, wait_ , Kirk though, _I just heard the rest of it_. Apparently, so had the rest of his family. Lia snorted, Sarek managed a subdued eyeroll and Lhairre crumpled a scrap piece of electrical conduit in his fist.

Lia slung her boots up on a broken cooling unit. “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. In this case, better to go do this thing and flatten Admiral Roskov as soon as we get back with a suitable amount of firepower.”

“Oof,” John winced. “Need it come to that, princess?”

“It could, but we'll see. It might just take a good fist to the face. The Guardians reminded me of something I can do right away. They can't tell me how to get the Starfleet ships out of it yet, but the Vulcan Navy, yes. All I have to do is go back and give the order.”

“Give the...Do you have the codes...oh forget it, that was stupid. Of course you do. This is the only way you can be in two places at once, which is what had to happen.”

“It changes the Battle of New Vulcan, not enough for us to notice. They assure me all who was rescued still will be. Because the Navy made no impact itself, we'll still end up where we did.”

John made the gesture inviting comment. “Risks, everyone?”

“Moving the portal up onto street level might get interesting,” Nick said. “Transport it?”

Lhairre nodded. “I can handle that with the big cargo unit on the _Shanai_ _Road._ It should be in orbit by the time we need to be there, and her captain knew me and will believe what I say.”

“The _Surak_ still has to be around until the last second. It'll still be damaged, but with luck not as severely. They were clear on that,” Nick added. “Maybe Soran won't be as busted up, ya think?”

“We can't take out the drill platform directly?”

Lia shook her head. “They said absolutely not. Too much hinged on what came immediately after, horrible as it was. All they would say to me was 'Believe it or not, it was all for your own good.' I cannot imagine any such thing, but they're the Guardians, I'm not.”

“So,” Nick said. “Who all is going and how we gonna get there?”

When he finished, Uhura rubbed her forehead again. “This is the craziest thing I have ever heard. Bear in mind I have heard the logical explanations for putting up with pon farr and for not eating with hands.”

Lia shrugged. “Centuries after we quit having a free for all over raw meat, we're still eating grapes with a fork in case we'd otherwise get a knife in the back of the hand. The other thing, on that side they hand out hormone shots and don't make men suffer. Still rowdy enough to be fun, but not so anybody gets hurt or killed. Next to those two, this is barely even nuts at all.”


	15. Truth and Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's really going to happen, but is anyone ready?
> 
> Nick is cussing up a storm because he sounds as much like a Western Pennsylvania coal miner circa 1960 as I could manage. "Blunt" has always been a gross understatement.

“Over on that side, we used to use that for truth serum,” Lia was saying to a hazy Nick and a yawning John as Kirk came out to the galley in search of one more Air Galactica breakfast before they made planetary orbit. “Nobody ever complained. Most came back for more of their own free will.”

“I can see why. You wouldn't care what you said to who. Anybody either of you want told off?” Their nervous smirks caused him to grumble. “No, I mean it, the deniability thing. You want me to call Roskov and tell him he's an asshole, I'll be glad to.”

“How about you wait and do that in person? You should get to see his face direct and I want vid of it.” Lia considered her coffee, deep in thought. “You should call Penndot about the potholes on the main highway through Carbon Creek. Not everyone has a hovercraft. My neighbor broke an axle.”

Nick added a note to what seemed to be a list. “Potholes. Ah. Davy's aunt was being a jerk. I'll call her. I already called Pat Matthews and let her have it for taking Amanda's half of the farm while Sarek wasn't thinking straight. That was _fun_. How about you, Jim, anybody I can rip into for you?”

“I can't think of anyone I'm that mad at right now. Too bad I can't take a raincheck.”

Lia eyed him up. “Credit for your thoughts, and no, they're not too much information.”

“Uff da, I forget, you three know. Yes, it has been the longest of my adult life, and the weird thing is I haven't, um, missed it that much. I mean, not like usually.” He made a helpless gesture. “Either something is really, really wrong with me or really, really right.”

“I'm fairly certain it's the latter.” John still had the trace of a cough. “You're busy but sure of yourself for the most part now. It does help, does it not?”

“Sure of myself? You must be...” No, he wasn't kidding, and he was right. For all the fear and doubt at first, he had managed, hadn't he? Next time Spock got hurt, if Bones wasn't handy, he would know what to do. “You're right. I'll get myself into impossible trouble soon enough. I might as well enjoy it while I feel competent.”

“And while I don't,” Nick said. “I'm trying to think of how to explain to the people we need to get out, but 'evacuate with all your stuff like you're planning to, and make it quick' is the best I can come up with. Sarek's plan assumed thirty-six hours for full evac and we can almost certainly give him forty-eight. As soon as we get in, the gateway can open to start the process.”

“Nyota's right. This is barely nuts next to some of the other stuff, but it's so big. Moving everybody and everything through that fast...”

“They don't all have to go through the portal or get to New Vulcan and Earth at once, either. They just have to be out of there by 0730 on the last day, to allow for one last sweep. Farmers with animals can follow their plan and haul out, or be hauled out, to New Hope Colony. It doesn't matter when they get there, only that they get out in plenty of time before the implosion so the ships don't get damaged. With the speed of the big carriers that won't be blown up this time, they can make at least two round trips and take off the third time. All we really need is for people to pay attention when Sarek first mentions the need to evacuate three days beforehand. Most people were already planning to go off-planet. They needed only to know sooner and have more alternatives, preferably as soon as the Vulcan Navy sees the _Narada_ in the distance.”

“That would give at least another two days,” Lia mused. “Could it work?”

“I'll ask Chi.” Nick tapped at his padd.

That was too much for Kirk. “You're e-mailing an energy being?”

John shrugged. “They have communications devices. They even have entertainments of their own when they get bored with watching the flow of galactic history. They think faster than Vulcans but live much longer, so boredom is a very large problem for them. Chi once said we had been the most fun they had since they moved a misplaced herd of mammoths for the Elder Brothers.”

Their captain emerged from the bridge to remove trays of sweet rolls from the oven. Lia handed him his coffee mug. “Ah. Thanks. What are you planning?”

“Just planetary rescue. Where were you during that week before?”

Ru thought about it and described his itinerary up to the point the Navy yelled for help. “I took the wormhole to get there faster, but by that time it was too late to do anything.”

“What could you do with an extra couple of days?”

“Hmm. I don't need to go get Judy, they canceled the conference early as it was...”

He gave Nick several questions and Lia followed up with her own. Next she turned to Kirk. “You had a bad allergic reaction and couldn't talk. Could you have written a note?”

“I never thought of it because my hands looked like I was wearing Ru's oven mitts. What if someone had sent Spock a message?”

“Someone he knew, for instance? That would buy an extra two days?”

“Possibly. Look, answers,” John poked Nick, who had zoned out. He stared at the padd until John took it from his hand, read the results and laid the padd down carefully, quivering. “Excuse me. The import has just struck me. Rescuing handfuls of people is one thing, this is another.”

“I take it there has been some activity.” Spock had extracted himself from the room, much less ruined than he had looked for some time. “Father is observing James' readings, which appear optimal within the artificial womb.”

“Another thirty-six hours and James will be the same age Sarek was when he had to come out. Skon told me of Rana's deteriorating condition and asked my advice. I told him to ask them to wait until I was there, and then...wormholes, transporters and everything. One could reach Vulcan from Earth at remarkable speed when...” John slapped his forehead the way Nick often did. “Arhem verrul, as you would say, ko'fu'li.”

“In addition to the portals. My. That would simplify.” She sent a message. “Protocol. I'll have Mother talk to the sheikh so we can offload in Dubai as well.”

John was still staring at the padd. “It can and should happen, but this...what did you say, Spock, about finding hope in the impossible?”

“In my defense, I was rather badly wounded at the time.”

“Aw shaddup and quit pretending you're not poetic like your dad,” Nick grumbled. He grabbed the padd back and messaged someone who must have picked up. “Commish. You know how you expanded the designated hitter concept? That's horseshit too. I dont care what position they're playing. You can't hit the damn ball, you don't need to be on the field.”

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “You were right, Jim. He does have the exact same reaction you do.”

“He's _your_ ancestor, twice over. How come you never get mean on that stuff?”

“I have only one copy of that gene and have extensive training in meditation. Also, when I am in enough pain to need that I generally seclude myself. And drink alcohol heavily.”

Ru turned from the toaster. "That's an idea. Alcohol won't kill the effect or make him drunk, but it might raise his blood sugar enough to take the edge off.”

“And he has plenty of edge,” John added. “Some of which we need today.”

Ten minutes later, Nick was propped up comfortably in one of the bridge chairs with a large tumbler of bourbon and an assortment of sweet foods while every other awake, alert person aboard was preparing to land the load of people and animals. “This will be a test of throughput capacity,” Spock mused. “Ground control expected five hundred plus a few animals. We have, all told, ten thousand, plus too many large animals to be counted and innumerable small ones who will have to find their own way off the cargo deck when we approach the surface.”

Kirk looked over his translated version of the logistics screens. “Getting everyone to the right hospitals and other facilities will be a challenge. With the time in space, a lot of the wounds that would have been fatal but aren't now are more or less stable and they can recover at home, wherever those turn out to be. There's space in the hotel at Carbon Creek. It's close to Memorial for after-care.”

“Just so. The hospital should be cleared as much as possible, because we know there surely will be injuries among the rest to be rescued.”

“That takes a huge load off even if it should make me nervous.” Lia paused, and he could see her mind working. “Nyota, do you have the new comm software on your padd?”

“Ae'i, rekkhai. The Guardians assure me it only needs to be on one end of the call.” She handed it to Lia, who dialed a number and leaned back, eyes closed, face turned upward.

“If this works, I may lose my mind.” Her eyes widened. “T'Jhu. Winter. Wind. Alimony.” She paused, doubtless for the other person to verify the passwords. “Yes, it is. Urgent priority one, recall all ships immediately. That anomaly they're looking at is a cloaked Romulan attack and I cannot get there in time to repel it. Yes. Just so. The cloaking device is a new type that nothing we have will detect. Planetary Evacuation Plan One, immediate execution. I cannot elaborate, but ground transportation will be provided for those without vehicles and the nearest portal to you will be on East Seventeenth off Shanai Road. The Guardians will be bringing a four-lane portal in there, at the Peace Memorial in Kir, at the monastery gates in Gol, on the end of Great Slide Road in Shanai City...” she went down a very long list. “I will cut the mission short and return, but it will take months at best. We require the smaller, slower ships to recover the prisons. No, security on my end is not a problem; I can speak openly, and you'll know why when you get here. Of course. In the top drawer on the right side of your desk, the package has a gold seal on a red background and you have likely eaten all of the almond ones. Bring them with you and I'll finish the coconut you dislike so. Take any needed intermediate orders from my brother. You can reach me on this channel. Have them take all ordinary household goods possible. Every major intersection. There will be some destruction which we hope to reverse, but everyone must be off world including senior staff on that date. You don't have a vehicle, do you? Here are your orders. Take a warp craft for your family and bring out all you own. Retrieve the tertiary and quaternary arks on the way before 0630 local so they won't be damaged should we be unable to stop the violence completely. Either Sarek or T'Rana will let you into the chamber and direct you in any details.”

She handed the padd back to Uhura, who was staring at it as much as Lia was. “I'm good, Aunt Lia, but damn, I had no idea I was _that_ good.”

“I just talked to the past.” Lia rubbed her forehead, the only outward sign of how close she was to being overcome. Kirk felt it nonethless and thought back _sufficient cause_. “T'Jhu was...will be...is my second in command on the loyal Vulcan side.”

“You're allowed, considering,” Uhura smiled gently. “I'm going to like her, aren't I?”

“You remind me of her. She got a little skeptical and asked me for a verifier, but that's how good she is. Once I told her where her workplace stash of chocolates were, she was certain.”

Lhairre appeared from the vicinity of the engine room behind Lia, silently wrapping his arms around her from behind. He laid his face down in her hair. “The chocolates from San Francisco,” he said, his voice suspiciously muffled. “She always ate every almond one out of the box before the week was out.”

She leaned back into him. “This time she won't wait. By this date, she had the family ready to go, but she was waiting for word that never came except in my brother's rather deferential address. It's four days to the Loss in her time and I gave her an order to get out. She _should_ be able to get away. ShiKahr flyway leads away from where that monstrosity was.”

“My aide,” John said. “In my office at the Ministry of State. She was old and frail and wouldn't leave when I urged her to.”

“T'Jhu can pick her up. I'll...” Lia suppressed a laugh that was close to hysteria, “be calling her several times between now and then. Her bondmate is on the _Shanai Road_ and we know we can get him out now. Their children are teenagers who can pack the apartment out by themselves and likely have time to get your aide's as well. There were...are four of them. Many hands make light work.”

Kirk had been standing, but felt the need to sit down, as close to Spock as possible. He wished Bones there on his other side, but the doctors had their hands more than full. “For that matter,” Spock said, having heard what he did not say, “we can be of assistance. It is...remarkable.”

“I didn't know anyone except by what you tell me about them, but I can understand.”

“You can,” he agreed.

“The last chorus drags on way too long and you need to get rid of the repetition,” Nick was saying. “Other than that, it's more than decent, Davy. Considering the shape I'm in right now, that might as well be an award.” He flicked the call off. “Fixed the new Confederation anthem, got Penndot to agree to take a look at the potholes and raised hell with the baseball commissioner because one DH is too many, let alone two. Told Nogura not to be alarmed and trust us, which he does, and keep his mouth shut, which he will. Oh, and the main library is ninety percent packed and sending most of it out as we speak. Were speaking? Will speak?”

“I don't even care any more as long as this works,” John said. “Temporal Investigations?”

“I don't plan to ask forgiveness from them and certainly don't intend to ask permission,” Lia got up slowly in a cloud of dignity. “I need to talk to Mother.”

Ru lifted his head and sprinted up the few steps to the cockpit. “Autopilot just notified me we're on approach. I'd better go contact Shield Port Control before I manage to get us shot down.”

The glide through the shields was so smooth they barely realized it had happened. The port was ready for the parade of ships to unload, and the entire hospital staff was waiting, action that would be repeated in two places on earth as well as three on New Vulcan. “We sent the Kiri to New Kir even though it's a little unfinished at the moment,” Lia explained. “If they're across the ocean, their odds of being able to go after anyone are much reduced. The Syrannites are simply happy that the new better watered and cooler Great Caves are not radioactive.”

“I resemble that remark,” Nick said. He looked less furious and more as if he were floating a foot off the floor. “I can't take care of anybody in this condition, so how about I handle the logistics of moving these people and check-outs on the ship here?”

Lia nodded. “We have ninety percent ShiKahri retrievals, so they can go right here.”

“And the Syrannites that married in. Not followers of Syran Syrannites, people who live there. I used to live there. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes, fa'sa. I still like to hear the stories. It's been far too long.”

“It has? I lose track of time.”

“No one was ever better at logistics than he was,” John lamented, “and now that we need him.”

“I'm right here. Not like I _went_ anyplace except crazy.” Nick tapped out another message, nodded at a reply and nearly hit himself in the face with his bourbon.

The unnerving prospect of leaving him in control of arrangements was overcome by the imminent need to have transportation for twenty times as many people as had been expected. Even though Vulcans normally walked anywhere they could, the speed with which they would all need to act meant the port area had to be clear as quickly as possible. By the time their aft cargo doors opened, it appeared Nick had mobilized everything on the planet that could move people and animals. The original plans had called for a welcome ceremony, but there was no time for that. The new arrivals who were well enough all offered to do whatever they could, which was a mild and pleasant shock. Kirk handled a string of requests himself. “Well, it's not like we can't,” Sochya the nurse said. “Rian can't do much but lie on a bed and process forms, but I can get around well enough on these crutches and you've laid out everything the same. I'll have to get used to not swearing at everyone I meet.”

“You and me both, sister,” Nick groaned as he wobbled into the light.

“I did notice your vocabulary is, ah, well, in my day we'd have thought it commendable. I gather that in this place and time Vulcans are more restrained?”

“Most wouldn't say 'shit' if they had a mouthful. I was back in time for a whole life with my beautiful human wife and I was a coal miner and they don't take crap from anybody. And they talk like they don't, either. It's not so different from being a Marine. And some were both.”

She looked up at Lia, who was standing on a cargo box pointing things out to a steady stream of junior officers. “I take it she is the officer in charge?”

“Of everything. Also my granddaughter. You'll find out what all she did, but you could do worse than sign on with our Navy. It's for all of Vulcan that isn't there any more, not just one country.”

“Should she be up there in plain sight?”

Kirk shook his head. “If I know her, she has enough body armor on to handle whatever gets thrown at her even if her bodyguards there miss it. Walk up and offer. Somebody will swear you in.”

“Hello, somebody!” Lia yelled down. “Jim, when they offer, most are already in one army or navy, but for safety's sake if anybody off-planet complains, swear them into ours. They've already passed deep background or they wouldn't be here.”

“The oath you--?”

“Yes. Don't try to do it from memory. Read it off your padd so your translator will render it in Old High Golic. Once you do, they're yours to boss around.”

It was easier to assemble a whole group and read the oath to all of the volunteers at once. Most had no problem understanding the old language without a translator, and all of them automatically said “Ae'i, rekkhai,” which wasn't the way he was used to being addressed. As fast as they reported to him and he put them on the rolls, he found places to use them. The small Kiri town, duly embarrassed by their preposterous failure at building spacecraft, volunteered to help with the big house printers on their own town and any extra that would be needed.

Bones ran up just after the last batch took off to their assignments, often at greatly reduced speed but with unmistakable enthusiasm. “You mean you went after five hundred and brought us back twenty times that many?”

“Yes, but the ones off the rocket weren't hurt and there were a lot who were patched up on the way and recovered with modern medicine even if they're still a little shaky. They want to help, because there are a lot more on the way.”

That got him the patented Bones eyeroll. “Okay, how many?”

“Um, about six and a half billion, give or take. Most of them won't be hurt, though.”

“Six and a half...Oh, Lord. How on earth. Or not Earth. I gotta go get ready, however that might even be possible.”

That was the last he saw of Bones for four days.


	16. The Wheel Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, come on, there's no way Kirk is letting anyone else drive. He's certainly not going to ride with Sarek driving again.

“I'm expendable, if anyone is.”

“You do not know your way around and the planet will be disintegrating.”

“I know the New Vulcan street map and it's identical.” He folded his arms and looked up at Spock, who had put on his best stone face. “Don't try it. I have the whole captain thing going.”

“So did I until Father decided you would make a better one. These people also have to call me 'rekkhai' but it does not confer invincibility.”

Nick walked by, attention seemingly on his padd. “Jim. How do I get from Stella's Pizza to the Science Academy chem lab building?”

“Out the front door to your right, take the alley behind the Great Hall, right on Embassy Court, go around the statue south on Academy Loop, no parking out front but I'll be dropping you off.”

“To get Lhairre to the Admiralty from there?”

“Trick question. He needs to be in the basement of Stella's for the secure comm.”

“Ooh, he's good.” Nick scratched his head. “Take me to Low Springs from the Great Hall.”

“Left on Shanai Road, go straight fifty kilometers, city hall is on the right. We were just there.”

Nick smirked at Spock. “We got a wheel man here.”

“Insufferable,” Spock muttered, even though Kirk could feel his amusement mixed with worry. “I do not understand why I cannot get Mother. I had to scramble up the cliff, which delayed me.”

Nick didn't actually touch him, but the comfort was almost palpable. “All they'll tell me is that there are reasons and if you try, neither of you will come back. Too close as it was, you know that. Surak had to get out, which meant the elders had to be there with the ark. They can't leave earlier, don't know why. Don't bother with the thing about hope being illogical. I hope too.”

Lhairre sent the Starfleet officers to the ship's stores to pick up gray fatigues so they would be visibly part of the peacekeeping force on the way. Sarek had called his car over to Green Sands, so they loaded up and went around Crater Lake.

“It'll fit, barely,” Lia said. The Navy's biggest shuttle sat beside the Guardians' portal cut into New Hope Mountain at the edge of the desert. “Thank you so very much, Chi. If there is ever anything we can do for you, we're eternally in your debt, you know that.”

“We can't tell you how it all works,” intoned the voice of the portal, “but our joy is to serve, we never get the chance to do anything big and fun, and you have all made us incredibly happy. It is we who are in your debt, Admiral. Is the portal large enough for your craft?”   
“Yes, thank you. If this fits, so will the buses and the APCs.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “When I go through, will my baby be in any danger?”

“Only from environmental threats, not from the process. We don't hurt anyone. Oh, why don't I just tell you? Don't even worry about your little one. She's already a force of nature and will be fine. Also, if you think she's adorable now, just wait. It's hard to tell whether she or her aunt Arre will be more beautiful. Prettiest little ones since our own.”

“What do yours look like?”

“You wouldn't be able to tell them from small rock outcrops, because that's only our physical manifestation. Um...I'm afraid they're why car keys and socks go missing so often. They get a little too enthusiastic about practicing and things get misplaced.”

Technicians came up with a wide rolling emergency comm rack with multiple stations. “For anyone who believes a call might inspire relatives to move more expeditiously,” one said.

Lia's mother strode up, graceful as always. “Do you mean to tell me that actually _works_?”

“Perfectly. The technology is backward compatible at least that far. I just spoke with T'Jhu.”

“I heard my name in all of that. Do you have orders for me?”

Lia cocked her head at her mother, completely puzzled. “Rha'?”

Rana's middle name wasn't “smug” but it should have been. “Ko'fu'kam, I am head of the Council since T'Pau retired, but _you_ are Fleet Admiral of the High Command. You outrank me.”

Mother and daughter exchanged a long look that broke into mutual savage grins. Lia touched her mother, feather-light, on the upper arms. “This is one of those moments that's going to end up in the Archives, isn't it?”

“And be talked about long after we're both little crystal souls, if we do it right. I suggest you be suitably dramatic and heroic.”

Lia drew herself up to full height and flung out an arm toward the portal. “S'Harien Zorana, I order you to gather in your people!”

Rana strolled across the portal with her head high. Two steps later, she turned. “So call the car already, Sarek. I'm pregnant, my feet hurt and I'm not walking two kilometers in a dust storm.”

“Yes, Mother.” Sarek's Vulcan-side diplomatic limo was large, suitable for packing staff along. He was about to drive, but Kirk occupied the seat as everyone else climbed in, crowding one another.

He made his best innocent face. “Just this once, sa'mi?”

Spock rolled his eyes. “That's what he said about the _Enterprise_.”

Sarek didn't argue. “Drop me at the house first and save space. I have another vehicle there.”

“We also have wheels at the Admiralty,” Lia said. “You can leave us at Stella's and we'll meet you on the other side. Of the portal. Uff da, that wasn't the way to put it.”

“And I left my truck at the shop,” Rana added. “I'll be taking the Low Springs exit to Carbon Creek when I leave, because Stor may hyperventilate if he knows what's happening. You'll be able to track me. Past me is already taking off in T'Kriss' shuttle, so my present self will stay till 0730 and get out before it gets entirely too interesting.”

The instant Kirk crossed the portal and stopped at the corner of Seventeenth and Shanai, he wasn't sure Lia hadn't been right about the other side. Conditions on the planet were already all but intolerable a day and a half before the implosion. As soon as he drove through, he noticed an orderly line of traffic flowing four lanes outbound on the highway. A soldier waved him down the shoulder. She held smaller cars only when one of the large commercial vehicles needed the whole space. “How can there possibly be enough time?”

“There's a portal at the Research Center in Kir and one at Gol, plus the Guardians' biggest one at Syran that we had to bring in on one of the huge haulers, and the Guardians are bringing in more for each location through those portals...don't ask me how _that_ works. The Syrannite portal goes to Carbon Creek and the Golan ones to New Gol on New Vulcan. Kir feeds to the biggest exhibition center on the farm colony where Judy's parents live, because they have space and pasture for the livestock. The fleet is also coming back and will fast-beam as many people as possible, plus the big commercial ships will already be here and loading instead of trying to get back here. Sarek calculated that in a dire emergency he could evacuate Vulcan in thirty-six hours, and he wasn't anticipating the number of people who would be ready to go because of the earthquakes. Most were just going to stay on T'Kuht, so they've only needed to change course and go through the nearest assigned portal instead of reporting to their transport zone in the same general area. Telling them what's really going on might only lead to more confusion and even, I dare say, panic.” Lia returned the salute of a soldier beside a large vehicle carrier with a truck on it. “She's a breakdown transporter. As soon as she has a load of disabled vehicles, she'll be flagged through.” Behind the soldier down a side street, a whole line of transports waited.

As Kirk dropped off his people, he marveled at the lack of chaos. “There,” Nick said, “is the big benefit of being soaked in logic and suppressed emotion since you were a fetus. Even if you're k'turr, you still remember how to set all the crap aside and just _do_.” He took out his padd, closed his eyes and winced just once, then made the call. “Kes-kam? Fa'sa Nick. Are you almost ready? It's bad, we can fix it but you don't want to be here while we do. You'll have to hold their bowl on your lap and be very careful. Cover it with a cloth to keep the dust out and change their water as soon as you're at my house. Of course bring that. There'll be plenty of room. Let me know when you all get there.” He clicked it off and put it back in his pocket, his face barely betraying the moment. “O Bozhe, Oekon, please let them get home all right.”

“Grandchildren?”

“Great-grandson, my hiking buddy. He was seven, his sisters were fourteen and seventeen, his little brother is a baby. He used to come visit and we'd walk up to the spring so he could see the fish. He has a couple of goldfish in a bowl that he's bringing. He answered while his parents finish loading the animals. I talked to them that day, just before, but they hadn't left yet. This time-- _time_ , ha—I made sure they were driving straight to the portal, not waiting for orders. Skon is waiting to let them into the house at Carbon Creek.”

“How are we going to house--” That was a stupid question; for the last year, the house printers had been crawling around New Vulcan replicating themselves and then the houses. Ten thousand people scattered through New ShiKahr had looked pitiful; they would have to get used to city life again. “Never mind. Too many Vulcans is a perfect problem to have.” He stopped at the ragged facade of a smoldering Stella's Pizza. “What's that Ru says, glohhasi...?”

“Glohhasi mnekha? Good hunting. Romulans aren't big on luck.” Lia and Lhairre bailed out. She thwacked him on the shoulder as she passed by. “Roll those sleeves up, kid.”

He didn't have time to think about the strange remark before he dropped off Sarek at his house. He hadn't been to the original except in Spock's mind, but the New Vulcan place was an exact copy. A crew of movers was carrying out the last of the furniture as the roof was crumbling. Yes, the front door was where that burnt-out personnel carrier had been centuries ago. “I will be here until the very last minute tomorrow,” Sarek said as he jumped out. “No one knows I'm at the Council, so there should be no temporal inconsistency. If so, James will understand. Solkar has experience with premature babies.”

“Be careful!” Nick yelled after him. “Awright, Spock, the Academy?”

“I need to alert Jorek's aide in person because it appears no one told the staff to evacuate. It will take approximately one point five minutes.”

“Plenty of time.” Another earthquake jarred the ground and Kirk was tempted to put the limo into hover mode so the cracking, shifting ground wouldn't consume it.

Nick watched Spock into the building, got out and walked over to a snack machine that had not yet been knocked over. He returned with a half-dozen cans of juice drinks and bags of fruit chips just as Spock ran out of the Academy with a very large box of scrolls and crystals, which he stuffed into the trunk. “Ah, T'Plana-Hath's manuscript and the last few years before first contact records. Two blocks up the street past the statue, Jim.”

“My turn.” John squeezed out the door. “I'm going to tell my neighbor and her family to go, and after that I'm going to see how much of the Archives I can get.” He looked around at the rattling buildings. A pane of glass smashed down from the heights of the Great Hall. “Quickly. I promise to bellow at Soran to move more quickly with the staff at the embassy and get back out of here through Seventeenth and Shanai with Ha'fek and her people.”

“Perfect.” They exchanged one of those looks Kirk recognized all too well, then John ducked his face into his lapel to keep the dust out and strode off into a nearby house that still had most of a roof. Nick tried not to watch him out of sight. “Now off to Low Springs, pronto.”

Kirk took him at his word, doubling back to the main thoroughfare. The road now looked too familiar; he remembered where the huge potholes had been and where the worst wreckage had been shoved aside. He was surprised at the free flow of traffic on Shanai Road, sans craters even though there was a steady stream of heavy aircraft roaring overhead. When he looked over at the port, the bizarre sight of a heavy star cruiser hovering with aft doors open and the carrier deck configured greeted him. Cargo movers flitted in to take up spaces while the dreadnought's transporters kept up a steady hum. As soon as her hold filled, the ship rose gracefully to be replaced by another large spacecraft picking up more movers. “There goes the Shanai City base,” Nick said. “I started out there. The whole thing folded so we could move it, and we drilled at least once a year if Seleya didn't go off and make us go across the ocean for real.”

“Oh, you were regular Navy?”

Nick smiled wistfully. “I wasn't good for much else.” He gestured with his drink. “I used to be stationed right over there. The house I grew up in was right down that road until my father moved it closer to Low Springs where there was some hope of getting water and keeping dust out of the filters. It'll fold too, so I expect Kes and his family have it on their farm wagon about now.”

The road stretched ahead, flat and featureless in the desert, with a steady stream of cars and trucks turning into the lanes as their controls handled the merges. Autopilot had its benefits, but at times like this they felt like a disadvantage; there was nothing to do but wait and watch for anything that took a driver's reactions. _If it's getting to me,_ he thought, _what's it doing to Nick?_ “Tell me about growing up on the farm.”


	17. Join the Navy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick gathers his own remnants.
> 
> The big finish was ruined by a scene in Beyond, so I'm rewriting the ending...a lot. Darn, there's no excuse to use that hoverbike!

“Hydroponic stack farming is all we had left by my time. Plomeek season to carafruit to berries and beans, always learning how to squeeze in one more row, always learning how to cut water use by another three percent, not a bad life. That's a stack like the ones we used.” Nick nodded out the window at a structure being folded. “The most sun-tolerant crops go on top, irrigation water sprays on the roots, the excess drips down onto roots in the next stack and the next and the next until there's nothing left once the bottom rows get done with it. It's empty, between seasons, good time to move it. Stacks and houses are always moving around the clan reserve to get to the well that has some water or the little bit of shade in high summer, so most people have fold and go down to an art. All they needed was enough time to know. We weren't rich out here, knew we wouldn't starve. The schools weren't the high-pressure, scary ones in ShiKahr. Lessons were delivered every morning and they got done when they got done. I think we learned as much with less stress.”

“I do wish,” Spock said.

“You'd have been better off. My kid put on airs and wanted to marry her city boy, or you could have come out to the country to get away. On the other hand, you wouldn't have learned to live by yourself out on the Forge when those pansies who kept kicking you around were afraid to leave the city. Anyhow, my mother was the district public health nurse. I used to ride with her a lot, thought about nursing school, didn't have the patience back then. Father mostly stayed around the farm. He made good bean curd and we had a juice press in berry season, and he'd take that to market or have one of us do it when we got old enough. The older brothers and sisters eventually scattered out with their bondmates and ran their own stacks nearby.”

Kirk knew that part of the usual farm life story. It didn't change much from one planet to the next. “Any of them left here?”

“A handful of the great-grandchildren.” Nick sipped from a can of juice. “The civil wars.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So am I. You'd have liked them. Youngest of seven, me, only one left of course because of all the time travel. Daughter Lena and I came forward thinking things would be better and ran right into the First Contact civil war, wouldn't have mattered whether we were on Earth or Vulcan the way it worked out because she had to be hidden and I had to lie low for having brought her.”

“Then this,” Spock said, his voice unnaturally tender. “But you keep going.”

“Yeah, we all think about not, but then this chance comes up, you know? We could have given up when we crashed, and look who all I'd have missed. We got home, too. I was sad—not gonna lie-- thinking I'd never see my parents again, when to them I wasn't gone long. I had time with them, we hid out from the fighting by going into stasis, we came back and when they died from old age I was here. The odds of getting John back once, let alone twice, don't bear calculating. From what I hear, you had a four point three percent shot at the _Jellyfish_ stunt, and you're here. Never underestimate the chance of miracles.”

He thought Spock was about to behave by keeping his mouth shut, but what happened was the bigger shock. “I concede the possibility.”

As they approached Low Springs, Nick craned his neck to see out the window. “Good, Sofic is gone in her old shuttle. It was a big, beat-up T'Kuht harvest hauler, plenty of room. She was always a good neighbor. Now...oh, good, there they are in line to leave.”

A patient line of farm vehicles lined up, their autopilots taking turns merging with the huge outbound flow toward the portals. Nick leaned out, shooing away dust, as they came up beside a folded house followed by an obedient string of self-powered stacks. A young man with rough brown hair was driving. He looked over, mildly curious as did the self-important long-haired calico cat on his shoulder. “You are here, sa'mekh'li?”

“I am, Serinn, making sure everyone is able to go. My Carbon Creek neighbor Jake Stolzfuss says if you need to park those stacks and the house on his south hayfield for now, he's fine with that.”

“Please convey my appreciation, but I'm going through the New Vulcan portal, whatever that seems to be. It seems Mae's mother has a new family reserve set up. Perhaps she meant it to be a surprise? I had no idea she had diverted from her trip to the agricultural institute on T'Kuht.”

“You'll understand when you get there. Mae and the children get going to Earth?”

“Yes, two hours before me. There was some concern over this cat. Gwyn was alarmed enough not to want to leave with the family, but I need to tell Kes that she is indeed safe.”

Nick's padd beeped. He looked down and nodded, then sent a reply. “They are, as well. Skon just let me know they've all arrived. I told him to pass along the message for Kes. If you need Mae on the farm, the children can stay with us as long as they need to while things settle down.”

Traffic began to move again. “Understood.” Serinn put up the ta'al and watched the truck drive itself out into the traffic, the farm following along behind it. As soon as he was out of sight, Nick put his face on his folded arms and dissolved into shakes. Spock reached back to him.

“All are safe, fa'sa, they are all safe.”

Nick nodded tightly, not raising his head. After a few seconds, he gave some sound between a gasp and a cough and went back to monitoring the stuation on his padd. He gave directions, Kirk kicked out the autopilot and followed down alleys, and they picked up boxes of belongings and crates of archive crystals from city hall. Spock was still subdued from his injuries, but insisted on carrying too much to prevent his great-grandfather from lifting any of it. Nick flagged them to a stop when he pointed out an elder sitting quietly on some steps in front of a newly vacant lot. “Mavar. Get in.”

“I am too old, Mestral,” the man said with great dignity.

“Get in the car, Mavar. You don't want to miss seeing the new place.”

“I made my family go ahead. I would consume resources they will need.”

“We have plenty even if we had twice as many people. It's a very long story, one you won't want to miss and definitely don't want to be here for.” The man had been accompanied by a grimly resolute little tabby kitten who protested when Nick scooped her up. “Your kitten absolutely doesn't want to be here but won't leave you, so come on.”

Mavar got into the small remaining space in the back seat of the limo and Nick was careful not to let go of the kitten until all the doors were shut. She looked around, mewed once in outraged distress, and climbed over Nick's shoulder to get to her person. “Jim, this is my stepson Mavar, T'Mir's son. Cha' Billy cha' Bob. What the hell is Betty doing?”

They stopped again. The kitten made no effort to escape, instead burrowing into Mavar's robes. A brown-haired woman about Spock's age was directing a work party folding a small museum. Nick barely opened the window because of the swirling dust. “Betty! Get moving!”

“I am. My husband took our house ahead. We're taking the Syrannite Culture Center to Carbon Creek for the duration. The Guardians have been very helpful.”

“Good, but get your ass in gear. Put it in the parking lot by our house. It should fit fine there.” He rolled the window back up and struggled with his face again. “They didn't make it before.”

“Jim, I do not believe we can transport anything else in this vehicle,” Spock said, “unless I get out and wait for your return.”

Kirk wasn't about to let him out of sight. “Oh no no no, nobody's getting separated without a plan to reunite. From here, we should be able to handle things from New Vulcan.” Kirk let the limo merge into the outbound lane behind a broad white van stopped in traffic. The van driver, an indistinct blur of light robes in the whirling sand, hurried back to them. “What's the prob—T'Rana?”

“They're hooking antigravs onto a large breakdown. It will be only a few minutes. We have retrieved S'Harien Music. The shop and its crew is on the way to its place on New Vulcan. I have brought the oldest instruments, along with my engraving tools, Skon's brushes and, ah...” she acted shamefaced, “my golf clubs. My game hasn't been the same, and our new tools do not seem to fit our hands properly. I suppose it is selfish, but there was room and time.”

Nick scoffed as he leaned up over Kirk's shoulder. “Now you're learning, Rana. There's no logic in leaving behind something you want when you're right there and can get it.”

“Skon wished to come through and help. I put him to work helping on that side. Traffic there has been remarkably light and well spaced. The Guardians have some sort of time dilation in effect that is most helpful. Traffic appears to move normally, but there is no backup at the receiving points.”

“Time in the past doesn't count,” Nick said. “It's to do with that. They tried to explain, but my mind won't process it. Works, that's all.” He tapped out another message. “Chi wanted to know whether you'd noticed. She says her people are competing to see who can bring through the most.”

“The generosity,” Rana said, and shook her head. “The kindness. I have much to consider, and a van to drive to the shop. This should be my last trip. I will be on New Vulcan until...time permits?”

“You make sure to let Skon know you're alive and well,” Nick said to her back as she sprinted for the van's cab. He closed the window and slumped against it. “Girl finally got the idea of a good thing. I've still got these two kids, anyhow.”

“Even if I am nearly two hundred,” Mavar sighed. “Sa'mi, you are injured.”

“Nothing serious, bum hip and bad reaction to the pain meds. Can't meditate, can't get into a healing trance, gotta power through. Work is a good thing. Yours got where they need to be?”

“They were going to...I do not begin to understand. Mae's mother has the property at Low Springs, only somehow not on T'Khasi?”

“It's 3 Vaebn, the same system with New Hope Colony, roughly the same size as Vulcan but only slightly warmer and drier than New Hope. We call it New Vulcan because we have no frickin' imagination. It's actually a more pleasant place, much better farmland, actual oceans and rivers and no radiation. There are places you can grow things right in the dirt. We're missing our volcano, but that may not have to be for long now.”

The older man blinked in puzzlement. “Do you plan to install one?” It wouldn't have been any stranger than the concepts he had already been asked to absorb.

“No, I mean get Seleya back, there's a long explanation you'll have to hear. I warn you, people you know who happened to be off-world when the big quakes hit may not try to hide being glad to see you, and most of the women who were out anywhere are pregnant and nearly all the guys are carrying artificial wombs. That's another explanation, but we'll have time for all of that in a few days.”

“Perhaps I am already dead,” Mavar said. “What an interesting afterlife.”

When time had shifted by four-tenths of a second on New Vulcan during the battles, Kirk had felt it; he knew the Guardians were making a similar adjustment now to move them along more smoothly. The sandstorm obscured vision outside the limo, but even inside, nothing seemed quite where he expected it to be. He no longer had to reach out with a hand to touch Spock. His mind would do and did, finding him constant as starlight, if more than slightly twinkling at the moment from the horror around them. Everything else around them seemed not quite firm or real, like a less violent version of a slingshot. When they made their orderly trip through a portal opening onto Shanai Road just beyond D'H'Riset, the area around it had the same soft unfocused look for a few seconds, then abruptly cleared to the scene of soldiers politely flagging people through. One of them came up and saluted when she saw the embassy limo. “Osu, may I ask you to park in the yard at the Fort?”

The gate was open and most of the vehicles were familiar except for a brown hoverbike parked beside the front door. As they got out, a small army of starsailors stood by to carry packages. Sarek's brother met them, an artificial womb slung from each shoulder. “Oh, good. I'm here taking care of the boys, Rai is commanding the response at the main portal -oh, you know that—and my brother is still roaming around in time.”

“He is well, then?” Spock asked.

“I talked to him not a minute ago. He finished directing the move and Soran is taking care of the Science Academy. They sent a cargo tug ahead this time so they aren't quite so crowded.”

“Now we're steamboating.” Nick walked his stepson and stepkitten down the hall and installed them in one of the numerous guest rooms, then limped back out to direct the unloading crew. Spock made another list of pickups and destinations, and they went back from the sunny day into the inferno.


	18. The Un-Finish Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of unfinished business for something that looks done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Vulcan Language Institute has now offered "fa'sa" as "grandpa." Sounds good to me.  
> Also, I did proofread this several times and ran spell check. The first post STILL had typos! If there are any left, I apologize.

They lost count of their trips in the melted liquid that time had become. On their last run through, the crowd around the portals was swollen with dignitaries arriving from who knew where; some of them were up on the container Lia had staked out as her vantage point early in the game, while most were around the base of it. Very efficient sentries checked them through. “Our next trip is to...” Nick actually had to refer to his padd.

The sentry offered gently “S'haile, I do not believe you have anywhere else to go.”

“Ah. We're out of itinerary.”

Kirk put the car where the sentry indicated and uncurled his fingers from the wheel. The limo had been on auto, but he had been gripping unconsciously and found it hard to peel away. “You mean we're _done_?”

Nick had crowded himself into a corner of the back seat with a box of vrekatras and some small statues. “Whatever. I'm losing my Golic and most of my other words. 'Done' is good in any language.”

“We cannot be,” Spock argued. He stared at his own padd. “Sa'mekh'li, I beg pardon. We have four people on our list and less than a hundred in total to account for, all of known whereabouts, and they will be coming through just before the implosion. We are...done. It hardly seems possible.”

“But it is,” John said. He opened the back door, handed the statues to a willing line of sailors and the vrekatras to an old priest, and extricated Nick, which was no small feat when he was nearly permanently folded. He held up his t'hy'la and shook him lightly, the way he might have shaken the wrinkles out of a cloak he had left creased. Nick's knees straightened out to let his feet reach the ground. Meanwhile, the sailors continued to unpack the limo and set the statues on their truck to take them to the Great Hall where they belonged for now. Nick grumbled and stretched, rubbing his lower back as they looked toward the commotion in the street.

If any of the other portals were active, the monitors didn't show them; their lone open view of to the ruins of Vulcan was nearly under the ledge outside the council's chamber in the mountainside. Much of the hillside had already crumbled, but the ledge was still there and would be for another few hours. Sarek was sitting on a boulder in the whirling dust, pack on his shoulder; conscious that they were watching, he made some blend of a wave and the ta'al.

Spock sent a message while Kirk watched. _Now?_

 _Not until the others are clear. I will when the time comes_.

“I need to be here until the last unit clears,” John was saying, “but really, Nick...”

“Yeah, I know, these kids will take care of me, do what you gotta.” He limped toward the house.

“That is interesting.” Spock nodded to a scene with an undertone of _what in the everloving world_. Kirk stretched his back and followed him to the crowd around the portal in the growing dusk.

Lia was looking down from her roost as Lhairre called up to her about a man in his custody. “Send him up.” The man climbed the ladder with alacrity and flung himself on his knees in front of her, throwing his head back. She reached down to meld, searched for a long moment and nodded curtly. To Kirk's alarm, she flicked her knife from its sheath along her forearm and made a sngle quick swipe at his throat, then stowed the blade almost in the same motion. The man did not move until she reached down and urged him to his feet, poking at the small droplet of blood on his neck with her forefinger. “S'chn T'gai Sybok, honor is satisfied. Return to our people.”

“Thank you, Aunt Lia.” He jumped down out of Lia's way, possibly before she could change her mind. “It's a long story, Spock, but I'm here.”

Spock was, to put it mildly, dubious. “You seem remarkably sane.”

“I should after the brain surgery.--Okay, gamma knife, no skull-cracking, but it got rid of the voices. I still believe in Sha-ka-ree, but with nothing whispering in my left ear I'm not going to try and invade it. I had to come and help, even if things might have gone the other way with her. Fa'sa John and Uncle Davy have seen my mind and will vouch for me and Aunt Lia made sure I'm not lying about it either.”

Spock turned to Kirk. “You remember the explanations.”

“Yes.” They had once called him Sarek's son, but not genetically; that was obvious—good Heavens, more because he could feel the difference than see it. Sybok was shorter, heavier, his face broader and coarser. Kirk thought _I just thought he looks more Kiri than ShiKahri, and where did that come from?--and worse yet, it's true!_

Sybok smiled gently. “Captain, I am not the least offended that you don't trust me. I wouldn't in your situation. You're also right: Hakeev is indeed from one of the First Exodus Kiri families. She who you knew as Rea was from one of the very old pre-Reform political marriages between ShiKahr and Gol. They were both batshit crazy and I inherited it, but fortunately mine was nukable.”

Spock eyed his face critically. “You have straightened your nose.”

“Sure did. I thought, if I can't look like Sarek, I won't look like Hakeev. I offered to do what I can for the older folks coming through. That's where I am right now, getting my doctorate in geriatric psych. I won't work with children, thanks to the way I treated you back when. Old people are safe because I'm unlikely to get an army together when they'd all be freezing and complaining. As for Hakeev, he barely knows where and when he is these days, so he's no danger. My bondmate and I take care of him.” He gave a wistful look toward the house. “I'm so glad Sarek...Be excellent to him, you know?” He disappeared into the crowd.

“Sleeves, Jim, dammit!” Lia yelled down. “Lhairre--”

Lhairre was on his way past. He stopped, rolled up Kirk's sleeves above his elbows with creases that might have been usable as weapons, fielded some small dust-brown objects that Lia tossed down and pinned them to both his and Spock's collars. “Nyota already has hers, and _she_ didn't have to be told twice. Kirk, when you're in a Starfleet uniform, do whatever the hell you want, but grays on, sleeves up.”

“Ha, rekkhai,” Spock answered for both of them, whacking Kirk with a surreptitious elbow. 

“Ha, rekkhai. But what...?”

Lhairre tapped the small object on his collar. “The Order of the Talon butter-bar insignia doesn't show at a distance. The sleeves do. It's a signal to anybody that thinks about getting in your face: don't start anything you don't want this one to finish. Saves us all a lot of trouble.”

He would have squeaked a thnaks, but Lhairre had sprinted into the house. The steady procession of vehicles slowed to a trickle as the last few supervisors brought out final bits of equipment. With nothing else to do at the portal, Kirk and Spock went to the house past a guard who glanced at them, then saluted with what looked like reverence. In spite of all the space at the fort, during breaks in the Battle of New Vulcan they had nearly always found themselves in the conference room with the chairs, table and benches out of a Romulan bird of prey. Things had turned out decently then, and he settled on one of the benches, hoping this would be a repeat.

The kitchen smelled especially good. They were not surprised when Ru emerged from his bedroom in fresh clothes, unruffled save for the ragged beginnings of a beard. “I don't know how many runs I've made. The way they stretched time makes it so I've either been running for two weeks or five minutes. My body thinks two weeks is right. By the way, nice beard. I think you should leave it,” he said to Spock.

Uhura went by, looking down at her padd in the middle of a conversation about the power grid and the unnecessary, for the moment, planetary shields. Without breaking stride or looking, she half-hugged Spock against her side and went on out the door, still offering suggestions to the other end of the call. He looked after her, the barest of smiles on his lips. Kirk felt his fatigue and the wish to lie down with her to feel safe and anchored before the implosion. “You won't have to see it again. It will still happen, but Vulcan will be empty this time,” Kirk said softly.

“Wishing is not logical,” he said, his eyes still glued to the padd he was tending.

“I don't know why you can't go get her, either.”

“I did ask again. The third answer was the same. In total, 'no,' 'absolutely no,' and 'there would be many very bad consequences, so leave it to your father.' Who is still there, serving as the last medic on the ground as these last IDA units go through.”

 _And you're not worried but of course you are._ “As John is the first medic on this side. Sarek still claims the Guardians have given him a plan and a precise schedule.”

“Just so. Doubtless they have investigated it thoroughly and their calculations are as impeccably logical as we have seen.” Which meant, as he could feel, that Spock didn't believe a word of it.

Nick deposited himself on a bench with a sigh. Spock glanced over at him, went down the hall and came back with a pillow and light blanket. “I cannot help with Mother, and John is not here yet. Perhaps I could help you?”

“It would be a good thing.” The wrung-out admission was too familiar, and Kirk had felt that same gentleness that was always Spock's answer.

Spock handed him Nick's padd. “You think like him. Start answering these queries while I perform some repairs.”

“If you say anything but 'how the hell should I know?' anybody who talked to me today will wonder,” Nick groaned as Spock leaned an elbow into his back. “Ahh.”

Kirk looked up from the battery of inane questions and requests. “Sa'mekh'li, you should rest.”

“Time enough for that when this is all taken care of.”

“Most of it is. Question about where to put the city bus fleet in New ShiKahr.”

Even Nick's growl was drowsy. “They haven't caught on yet that seriously, the garage is right where it should be?”

He sent the message, the way Nick had been doing for however long they had been on the run. “Yes, Chal'ga'tha, city hall is where you expect and the office contents show as having arrived. This one, where do we put...I know the answer to that. Behind the Carbon Creek community center, power tap is right there.” It occurred to him that he only half remembered the layout from being there; he seemed to be able to pull in Nick's mental map as well as he did Spock's, and that had certainly been convenient on several occasions. Many of the inquiries coming in could have been solved had anyone looked at a map, but he couldn't blame the evacuating travelers for being confused. After all, how much sense could “the planet is being destroyed and we happen to have a replacement all set up” make to anyone who didn't know the whole story?

They had been...gone...for months. To the six billion, it would be no time, to the Remnant, over a year of broken hearts and broken bonds, off-cycle hormones and buried desperation.

_What if he does find her? What if he can only say another goodbye? What if he won't?_

The thought must have been in all their minds at once, so strong that he was all but forced to send the text message: _Are you well, sa'mi?_

_I am well. There are many details to take care of. Much more can be saved._

_Do not stay too long._

_The Guardians assure me they will not allow that._

_Spock is with me._ He looked in the view port of the baby tank beside a sleeping Silek. The resident was unmistakably bigger even before he looked at the display that proclaimed his measurable weight gain.  _James is having a growth spurt. Ru is bringing back the Red Mountain crew and will be done. We are in the conference room at D'H'Riset._

_Oddly enough, I just left it barren. I have sent all of her books._

_The cargo carrier dropped off the pod out front here. Have you seen her?_

_No, she is already with the past me. I did not let her out of my sight until the beam began. I closed my eyes at the last, you understand_.

He had glimpsed that quick unguarded moment of the world crumbling and the transporter pulling at him, turning Spock and Amanda to that familiar gold swirl. Sarek had closed his eyes expecting either to die or to open them and find his wife and son. Now he was alone in a collapsing city that was emptying into the portals or loading itself into the entire Vulcan Navy, all of Air Galactica's cargo vessels and any Starfleet ship that had made it back from the beginning of the Battle of Vulcan. _We await your arrival._ As he expected, Sarek made no further answer.

Nick's padd dinged, an urgent from Ru. _Solkar's assistant T'Marra is in the Fort springhouse and I can't reach her. Have her go to the front gate immediately_.

T'Marra? The name was familiar—yes; he remembered Ru bringing back what little remained in the wreckage around the escape path, then making it his personal mission to take what was left to the survivors. T'Marra had been one of the recipients. Her husband, her two children...she had been on Earth at a conference; they had tried to get out of the remote Red Mountain center in their shuttle but waited too long. Kirk sprinted for the door, giving the others a brief recap and trying to watch Nick's padd and his own while he was moving. The springhouse? Of course. Out, to the right, back along the wall to the south doors, down the long slope to the left. It wasn't actually a spring now, but city water feeding that recreated fountain in the wall; across from it, in the copy of the room where he had met the dead general, a woman Spock's age was coordinating arrivals near the Pittsburgh consulate with those in other places on a series of screens in front of her. She looked up, so he spoke with what he now understood to be customary lack of ceremony. “You are needed urgently at the front gate.”

She made a quick note explaining her absence and followed him around the winding path. The yard was full of vehicles again, people were milling around, and heavy aircraft were thundering overhead, but there were no curses, no bombs and very little chaos. The distant spaceport was thick with big craft landing just long enough to unload and go again as a steady procession of vehicles poured through the nearby portal. One of them was the Red Mountain Research Center van with a smaller family transport, packed with personal effects, in tow. T'Marra's face did not change. She pressed a hand to her throat and said “How odd. I no longer seem to have Galan's chain.”

The van pulled to the side and the driver leaned out to speak to the guard, who waved the vehicles through and found a place to put them in the lot. In a moment, the man pried himself out of the van, followed by a small sehlat and two tired children, one perhaps eight or nine and the other a toddler. He bent to scoop the smaller one up and made his way toward them as T'Marra watched, silent on the outside and Kirk knew, exploding within.

“It was a long trip,” the man said, juggling the half-asleep toddler to cross palms with her. “We sent your brother off with the shuttle because we had more than enough room in the vehicles.”

“He arrived half an hour ago,” T'Marra said, as if it were normal for such things to happen. She stopped her hands from embracing him, reaching up instead to dust off his jacket and straighten the little boy's shirt. Her fingers lingered for a moment on the silver chain at the base of his throat. “There is much to discuss, Galan. It is most agreeable to see you--” she was choking on the words, stoic face or not-- “but we should move our belongings from here to the apartment.”

“I see,” he said with equal calm, masking his confusion. “Where would it be now?”

“In the same place as always. I will explain when my relief arrives.”

“Ko-mi,” the toddler murmured irritably, and reached for her.

“I can monitor until then if you would like to settle your family,” Kirk offered.

Joy. Gratitude. No outward expression at all, her own relief already in place. “That would be most helpful. My relief should be here in minutes.” The puppy fell in at heel, the grumpy child climbed into her arms and the older one walked beside her telling her about their trip. Dust and ashes had become flesh and bone again, and they would never understand why their mother cherished them so.

 _The way I do my people_ , he thought. He could not forget being dead any more than T'Marra's family would remember. Spock Prime had tried to comfort him, because he did understand, but talking to him now was difficult; he was too frail these days to do more than sit in the shade by the portal and greet those he knew as they returned from death and he neared it. _John. I need to talk to John again_.

As he watched the rapid deployment of the last assets, the odd color schemes on the big Vulcan ships made sense. Captain Rai was dealing orders, culling his own people in their lavender from T'Maekh's in black and gold or the ones from the _Spirit of Gol_ in dark blue and gray—the ancient uniform colors, he realized with a shiver. In fine Vulcan form Rai had turned off his personality and had gone into what Nick called Deal With It Mode, and that was downright scary. A quartet of eerily efficient-looking soldiers in gray fatigues--with rolled sleeves, Kirk noticed--nodded at his order, saluted him and Lia and left at double time.

A tall, thin younger woman left her huge military hauler and climbed to the command post, automatically moving in with the commanders. He realized she had to be T'Jhu, who in the previous version of va'Pak had stuck to her post with legendary courage and died trying to evacuate her people while she also coordinated the Vulcan Navy's wreckage and the Romulan Fourth Fleet, still in deep cover and too far away. Due to the temporal repairs, her charges had all come through in good order, and she, of course, had sent her family ahead and gone back to work until the very last of her people crossed the portal.

 _It's a shame no one will know how brave she is,_ he thought. _Or maybe this is also brave, even if it is different. Now she will be known as the one who stood to the last, then saved the entire Vulcan Institute for Defensve Arts, statues and all._ While he watched,a party of sailors from the _Carbon Creek_ leapt on the newly arrived hauler and began to take the pieces into their replicated spaces at the Fort. _It's an odd homecoming, but at least they're...sort of...home_.


	19. The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Other than picking up a lot of disembodied people from Shanai Road in front of the house, the night is long and there's not much to do.

Trying to think at confused-Vulcan speed strained Kirk's every nerve in a good way. He had instants in which he wondered how much better he would be in a starship battle for the experience. Everyone was off the dying planet, but not everyone who had come through knew where to go and nearly all of the new arrivals were even more confused than the thousands rescued from the past, most of all when the two parties met. Someone who believed himself important begged for instructions at least once a minute. Spock had to go outside and physically point the Earth Embassy trucks to their quarters even though they were identically placed and Prime had already tried to explain. Kirk became the de facto Starfleet liaison, relocating families and security delegations from Embassy Row to Embassy Row and explaining to uncharacteristically slow-witted Vulcans.

Nick was half asleep in an irritable drowse. “Yes,” he said to Kirk at one point. “You can multitask easily if most things are assumed. They can't assume now, so they're mentally stalled.” Of course Nick would know. It didn't take Sherlock to put together the clues to his mind even if he was poor at shielding and Nick was incapable of shutting off the unguarded input.

“Because the environment is unfamiliar...?” He directed a fugitive library to its own parking lot and hoped the caretakers would catch on.

“Do you know how far the average pre-Loss Vulcan traveled in an ordinary two hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and fifty-year lifetime?” He didn't. “The longest trip not including the kahs-wan or mandatory visits to Seleya averaged two hundred kilometers.” He looked over at Nick, inviting the rest of the story. “Physically visiting other places when you can view remote cams is illogical. If you live on the clan reserve or the family building in a city, you're statistically likely to live less than a kilometer from your parents and two kilometers from your in-laws. You're guaranteed food, clothing, shelter and health care. You know who you're supposed to marry; that frees up a lot of mental processor time. Be in the asexual half of the population or convince yourself sex isn't worth the trouble, there's another chunk six point nine five years out of seven, so even those of us who do like it lie to ourselves and try not to think about it. The big exercise trail around ShiKahr is so easy to memorize that people run it while they work. It's life on autopilot, except for the Remnant, it isn't any more.”

The Remnant, forced out of any comfort zone they had ever owned, had seen space, been on other planets and dealt with strange food, other races and odd customs. Two thousand had pioneered New Vulcan, fought for their lives hand to hand in the streets when the attack hit, buried the dead, built the cities and planned, with what looked suspiciously like hope, for a return now, incredibly, almost complete. “There are good points to the old life. All the scientific discoveries,” Kirk said.

“Sort of. Notice how much basic research Vulcan ships out to the rest of the Federation in exchange for practical applications? Research reveals truth, truth is logical. Innovation based on truth is fuzzy and scary and cannot happen here. The more the Council clamped down on outside influences, the more people took the contented life for granted. Now it's come back to bite us in the ass.”

The sound a returning Spock made caused him to look sideways, but his Vulcan was merely smothering another guffaw. The presence of his great-grandfather tended to cause those. “Father's aides at the embassy had been posted to Earth for between one and five years, yet most had never left the Embassy grounds. Those who saw Dubai or Las Vegas were unnerved. Those who stayed in the secured rooms of the contaminated embassy considered themselves fortunate until Sarek returned.”

“Did he really...” Kirk began between explaining the street system to two different parties, but Nick was already snorting.

“Yes. I was there. We stopped in Frisco on John's and my way home after the battle. The dozen or so of them had run out of MREs and were quietly waiting for starvation or someone to come and fill the synthesizer, whichever came first, because they didn't know where else to go to get food. You know I've seen that before, but they're not my circus, and John just shook his head and let Sarek handle it. He looked around at the lot of them, pulled the bus around and said, in that deadly quiet voice of his, 'Get. In. The. Van.'”

“I am familiar with the intonation,” Spock agreed. “I would have gotten in posthaste.”

“They all did. He ordered them into a Terran restaurant to look at menus and order their own food, then he took them to the beach and made them get out and look at the ocean and even touch the water. Now every time he's in town he leads an enforced field trip and some of them no longer panic.”

“Grandmother Rana had never been off the planet. Now she is fond of Earth, especially Dubai, the Sahara and Carbon Creek, in addition to a marked preference for San Francisco.”

“Because Skon is there. Before we fixed that bend in time that had him dead...honest, I don't know what would have become of her. I doubt she would have gotten in the shuttle to see what was going on overhead. She was such a flaming bitch after va'Pak, no wonder, but once he was back in the proper timeline...so many repairs need made. So many little bits and pieces of damage over the years adding up to such terrible things. Eh. It'll get fixed sooner or later. In good time.”

It was an uncharacteristically Vulcan joke coming from Nick, but Kirk decided to take it. “By the way, I fielded a couple of sensible inquiries from Kril'es Mak and company, set up in the city hall at what now passes for Low Springs. He and little Korsau's mother...I guess she's now his bondmate...are really doing a good job getting the clan settled on their lands out your way. Even still torn up from her injuries, she's incredibly capable. He's fascinated by it all, of course, and according to this note he's writing down the whole story as it happens.”

“He'll never have to buy himself a drink again,” Nick said. “Or her either once she tells how she got taken prisoner back in their time. Even the Kiri archives admit she was crazy brave. Chief of police in Chal'ga'tha, got her officers out and tried to stand off the whole damn Kiri advance alone during a big fight two years before the one we saw. They were so impressed they hauled her off instead of killing her.”

He realized what the uneasy note was in the back of his mind. “The people we rescued...they'll still be treated properly?”

“We were ridiculously inbred before the Loss and we still need them. Chi, she'll tell you time won't give you people you don't need. They're supposed to be here. If you're missing a particular one who should be, maybe that will be fixed someday too.” He moved his leg carefully, easing his hip onto a warm sand pack Spock had taken from the cooker. “Better. John needs to get back here soon too.”

“Why?” The booming voice in question dragged its tired body in and deposited it on the bench, cradling his sleepy baby stepdaughter beside the bags of baby boys. “Cordais is most difficult to detach when I've been away, and her mother is extremely busy at the moment.--I brought a bag of sand and the top stone of the Thousand Steps for now so the priestesses will have it for ceremonies. Also, the people Soran brought out are not nearly as badly injured as they were before these adjustments. The Andorian girl's broken bones are not as severe and Soran's injuries are only a broken leg and a pair of thoracic vertebrae, all on the mend as we speak. Sarek should not need to shout at him.”

“That's good, because he isn't back yet.” Nick yawned. John wasn't touching him; they were sprawled on opposite ends of the bench, yet their mutual comfort was almost visible. John shifted the little girl, reached into his pocket and threw a small object at Nick, who caught it and tried not to laugh. “Stylus from the counter at Stella's Pizza. Can we save the universe with it?”

“No, for that we needed the toy lightsaber.” Without opening her eyes, Cordais unwrapped a hand from his lapel and brandished the object in question. “Ah, she stands ready if we need her. Ko'mi's little Marine.”

“I talked to my now-bondmate. She met her then-self and just left New Hope after she dropped off the rescued farms, so she'll be here late tonight. That ought to help. I warned her I'm still mean.”

“By the way, who were you chewing out on the comm earlier?”

“Before all this broke out, Prime used to talk about how much he wished he had been able to fix things with his dad, so I...kind of...”

John tilted his head gracefully. “Engaged in forceful interdimensional diplomacy?”

Nick rubbed his eyes. “You could call it that, or you could say I raised hell with his Sarek. I told him when I was and let him know I was still his elder and he was going to listen. Chi gave me a temporal bubble to use and said I'd like the way it turned out, but who knows.”

Spock raised an eyebrow but said nothing. That continuum's Sarek, equally broken by the wreck of his life even before the _Kelvin_ event, had not lost his planet, but had never recovered from the later, natural and expected loss of his Amanda. Verbal jousting with their son sufficed for a relationship until Sarek's dubious second marriage and miserable, lonely and early death. It was too easy to see theirs on the same road, had events not intervened. Who knew how the present course would go?

Before he could become contemplative, Lia strode in. “I am in serious need of a biscuit or this kid is going to chew up an organ, and I can delegate everything but eating and--” her description of needing the bathroom soon was Romulan-blunt, but food took precedence. “Jim'kam, how long has it been since you slept? Dozing off in the driver's seat in the traffic jam doesn't count.”

He suspected she had dozed off in the command chair often enough and understood him better than he wished she did. Fatigue had indeed demanded his attention as he could no longer deny. “I have no idea. I'm not even sure when we are.”

“Planetary 0100 on the Day, planetary 0100 Tuesday morning uptime. Crazy brother refuses to come back over and wait even though he has almost seven hours to go.” She removed both his padd and Nick's from his unresisting fingers. “You do not need to keep answering questions from the Home for the Terminally Clueless. Thanks to T'Jhu, we once again have staff for that. Normally, so do you, and don't forget that when you go back to your day job. They can do the work, let them have the work. Lie down. I don't care whether it's a bed or a bench. Have you eaten today?”

Did “today” have any actual meaning? There was food. Had he taken any? “I don't...remember. Not much, maybe? I'll get to it.”

“Then you're going to eat before you sleep. Spock'kam, have you?”

“Today? No, Aunt Lia.”

“Call Nyota and I bet you'll get the same answer. This is your chance. Your father isn't going to leave the Fort until the Guardians tell him to, and that's going to be the absolute last second.” She hurried toward the hallway, crashed into Lhairre, turned the accident into a long and evidently satisfying embrace, yelled “Eat! Sleep!” at them all and went on her way.

“Bossy bitch,” Nick murmured in his half-sleep, and smiled. “My little princess.”

Kirk put a bowl of soup in front of Nick and was just finishing what looked and tasted like, but doubtless wasn't, a cheeseburger when Lia sprinted back up the hallway cursing in all three of her languages. “Spock. Fa'sa John. We need you, khitno je.”

John peeled his stepdaughter loose and gently deposited her beside Nick. “Stay with our Mestral, Cor'kam. What happened?”

“One of the citizen katric arks was damaged in the quakes, no one realized how badly. When they began to unload, it spilled and we have a street full of startled people with no bodies.--Not you, Jim, you haven't been trained. Ru, are you--”

“Good to go.” They departed posthaste, leaving Kirk and Nick alone in the conference room.

Nick made a face. “They get to have all the fun. Hm. You're thinking like it's a religious deal. They're talking about the genetic ability to handle vrekatras safely. Anybody with the right genes can take the training, which isn't that involved, and most of John's family has the setup.” He shook his head. “You think the ones with skin on are confused. Just so nobody untrained grabs them.”

“Can I ask...” _Oh, come on, Nick won't bite your head off_. “What exactly did Sybok _do_?”

“You put two and two together real well. Sarek, with his mother's help, decided it was kindest to fudge the truth about Sybok's parents. I can understand, Rea died in an ugly way and the crew at the monastery very nearly tossed baby Sybok off after her from what I heard, but old straight-line thinker there didn't realize people were going to talk and the kids at school would hear them.”

“I'd think he'd remember what gossipy kids are like.”

“Sarek was too frail to go to school much. He hung out at John's office while he was little, then at his dad's shop after John was in stasis. That's why he didn't clue in that Spock wasn't just a klutz. When Amanda pounded it through his head, he was horrified, but what could he do then?”

“And Sybok, being the older brother...?”

“He doesn't have the gene profile to be a priest and didn't get why. When no one would train him, he tried to do it himself and it didn't work, then he kept taking Spock off in the desert and trying to talk him into all sorts of wrong things. Sybok had his head filled with every rumor you can imagine, some from mean kids and some from mean adults with even worse intentions. Finally he decided to get the straight story from Rea, so he bulled his way through the elders at Gol and grabbed her vrekatra wrong-trained and bare-handed. He'd always been messed up mentally; that finished the job. It meant a lot to somebody at Gol to drive a wedge between Spock and his dad, between Sarek and Amanda, even between her and Spock. I checked to be sure the spy actually did fall off the Bridge of Sighs and didn't fake her death, because she was such a...rotten person,” Nick amended, because Cordais did not appear to be entirely asleep and the boys in their bags were developing hearing. “Baby Vulcans understand too much too soon. Mavar learned to cuss in Standard that way.”

“How's he doing?”

“Sound asleep. He's old, but he should have another couple decades and he'll be okay once we get the planet fixed. Wouldn't do to lose his cat. Hm. Don't cuss in front of them, either.”

“We do have kind of foul mouths.”

“You're mild and routine. Me? Sixty-five years around coal miners, and worse yet, mine owners, then a bunch of years around k'turr, and I can get way too creative.” He reached over to Silek's son and patted the bag. “You don't hear any of this. Neither do you, James. I can get away with patting the two of you when nobody stuffy is looking.” The little girl grumbled and stuffed herself tighter into his robe. “I know, Cordais, I'm not your dad, but I'm what you got right now. I always wanted a big family. Couldn't see how it was going to happen after my first bondmate dumped me, thought I'd lost them after I came back from Earth, didn't turn out like that at all.”

“I admit I did read a lot of the reports while I couldn't sleep on the way back. There wasn't that much about you after except you were on the First Contact mission.”

“I was on leave at home, wrung out and not able to talk to many people about what had happened, like a long happy marriage, five kids and an entire lifetime that didn't seem to count. Got a call on the last day of my leave: since I could speak English, would I come in for an interview for another survey mission to Earth? There was a big guy barely older than me in the interview room, an astrophysicist with a harp over his shoulder, I thought he was another applicant. We talked a while. I got the idea he wasn't hardline Surakan either, and he was fascinated by humans and talked about how resilient they were. Finally he hinted he knew what had happened. I have no idea why I told him the whole truth. He was so kind to me, then he came clean about being S'chnT'gai Solkar and the mission commander. If there's love at first sight, there's friend at first sight too. He picked me for his mechanic, which is how we found ourselves climbing out of the _T'Plana-Hath_ in Bozeman that night.”

“Was he John then, or always Solkar?”

“His dad wanted to name him Jhan after an ancestor on his mother's side, but T'Ria wanted to name him Solkar. She got her way on the papers, but his dad called him Jhan'kam when she wasn't around. Jhan'kam, Janko, Johnny, one of those names the Older Brothers must have brought around.”

“When you made first contact and they let you travel, you must have gone to look. Was there anything left at Carbon Creek besides the graveyard?”

“One of the grands had cobbled a shanty together from the house parts. The Augments razed the church; the congregation hid what they could way back in the mine. That first night they invited me to the Black Chapel and...grandkids of people I knew, incense, that old room, I hadn't realized how much I missed it. One day I was working on the clinic they had set up in another room in there, and my parents and oldest brother came in. They had all talked their way onto a cargo ship, spent three days traveling when they'd never been in space, and took a month off from work to meet everyone and get the clinic working. My mother even saw a few patients along with our doctor, to get the idea of what was and wasn't different about humans, because, she said, there'd be an embassy soon enough and they might need her. Sa'mi went around and talked farming, of course—he knew how to grow things without getting contaminated soil into them, but he couldn't believe not having to worry about water. No weather control then, and it was real cold from October to May because of the dust in the atmosphere, so it April-snowed while they were in town and they were amazed. I don't think he ever stopped talking about it and I know the people back in Low Springs never stopped listening.” Nick tapped up a picture and showed it to him. “There we all are.”

“Was it awkward for your grandkids?”

“For some, no. For most, terrifying. The war was over, but it wasn't a good time to admit being part alien. A few descendants still don't.”

“I would,” he said, not sure why. “Family is family.”

“Missing your dad a lot tonight? Missing your borrowed one too?”

“Scared to death for that one,” he admitted. “But him, I can call.” He did, laying the padd on the table on speaker and not bothering with the message function.

Nick leaned over. “Talk to me, Sarek.”

“I am undamaged, contemplating the situation. I may be the only Vulcan on the planet outside the Council room.” He had left his boulder in favor of a heavily reinforced open shelter along the mountain road, made for ducking into during Seleya's angry moments.

“Just so,” Nick agreed. “I do not suggest you meditate in any deep or distracting way.”

“No, I am in active contemplation, ducking some rather large lava bombs and boulders. If I recall correctly, this rock shelter remained intact even as we were leaving.”

“Then I hope you have a very good memory.”

“I know she is near. It is odd to feel my own shadow in all of this. I remember wondering why I seemed to sense myself, like a reflection.”

“Are you sure you don't want to go back when it's closer to time?”

Sarek looked off into the fearsome distance, outwardly composed. “I do not believe it would be useful. This is beyond any opportunity I had anticipated. Not unlike being with a dying patient.”

“You've done enough of that to know now.”

“I watched the Bridge of Sighs fall. I am keeping a record as I can, noting the time at which major structures failed. The Great Hall is still standing, although it must topple within minutes.” There was a distant crash. “I overestimated.”

“I trust Chi, but if you have any doubts, you come through.”

“I will not need to, osa'mekh'li. They have said it. I need to meditate now.” He cut off the call.

Kirk walked outside and looked toward the portal. Spock was helping pick up the vrekatras, but he kept looking at the viewport with an expression he knew too well. Hadn't he seen it on the other side of the glass in the warp core decon room? Close, so close, just out of reach, and the Guardians would not let Spock across any more than Scotty would.

“Both of us are going to disobey a direct order from the Admiral,” Nick sighed. Kirk shrugged in confusion. “Nerves may give us the munchies, but neither of us is going to be able to sleep.”

Sleep? The other people he could lean on in his usual insomnia were out in the street picking up what looked like thousands of crystals and the one person he inexplicably couldn't let go of was beyond a portal on a dying planet. He needed to get lost in someone else's time. “You told me about the farm and how you got to go back to Earth. Tell me about living in Carbon Creek.”


	20. Carbon Creek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick reminisces, and Kirk begins to realize how much ever surviving Vulcan lost...but what will they do with what they have regained, and what they never knew they had?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tecumseh's name is variously translated as Panther-across-the-sky, Sky Panther or Panther Across The Sky. That's an actual quote and his father's name really was something akin to Falling Star or Meteor.

“You know how I got there. You know how the mine was. What else do you want to know?”

He could have made something up, but this was Nick. “I think what I'm asking is not so much what happened as how you lived.”

“Ah.” Nick eased the unwounded leg up and crossed the other at the ankle, propping up the sore hip. Kirk handed him a small pillow for his knee. “You've had lots of experience with beat-up people. Your grandma would have taught you more. Might have made a doctor out of you.”

“I only really knew her for a month, and things went crazy so fast, but she was trying to teach me all she knew. Grandpa was more about trying to make me happy after the business with Frank. I was such a mess and _then_.” The memories faded to a vignette and a thought: had it not been for Grandma Kirk trying to pour all of her knowledge into his skull at warp speed, would he have had any chance to survive? “When Kodos made his announcement, she slid toward the side door of the hall, grabbed my shoulder and whispered 'Run!' They went one direction while I took my kids in another.”

Nick seemed to be fighting some dark moment. “Did you see her body?”

“Not hers, not Grandpa Jim's. I saw Hoshi Sato's. A lot just went away that night and there was nothing left. I don't want to think what happened to them.”

“Of course you don't and I shouldn't have asked. Not in my right mind, you know that. You asked about other-home. Figures what really sealed the deal for me was getting sick.”

“I wondered how you managed. How...I mean...?”

“The longer you hang around Earth, the less cuproglobin and more hemoglobin you make and the redder our blood looks. I noticed my skin turning color.” True enough, when Nick was healthy he was more beige than yellowish-green, and John was more bronze than gold. “Men wore their hair short, so wasn't much I could do about the ears. My crew called me Rabbit, then Bunny Rabbit and finally Bunny. They'd come from Italy or Serbia or Croatia, and they teased and gave new names, but they knew what it was like to have half the language and not know how to do things American-style. For instance, Mike and Maggie taught me to drive her truck. Little things, like a key instead of an ignition plate, gasoline, oil...you learn. I got laid off that first fall and went down to Pittsburgh to hustle pool and card-count blackjack in the illegal casinos. Maggie knew where they were. She was a teenager when she got pregnant and Jack's dad took off. When he was little her dad got hurt in the mine, there was no money coming in, and she went down to Pittsburgh and was a hostess in a couple of places till she got a down payment on the diner. 'Hostess' in this case meaning 'do whatever the mobsters tell you.' She was ashamed. I told her people do what they have to do to live, right?”

“How I always thought,” Kirk agreed.

“That diner was killing her. Tata Mike couldn't do much, so she got up at five in the morning to start breakfast and stayed open till nine at night unless Jack was home from school and could help. We don't need that much sleep, so on day shift weeks I'd go down at five to get things going so she could have that extra hour or so, and she'd come down in time for me to walk over to the mine. Afternoon shift, I'd help at lunch and run the place from after until shift time so she could nap for a couple hours. Vulkansu, so much more durable than humans, right?”

“Mine isn't,” Kirk smiled, “but he thinks he is.”

“I made the same mistake. We were shorthanded that winter because the whole town was sick with the Asian flu. Influenza sounded like one of those annoying little problems.”

“Hoo boy. Vulcan lungs and flu. Spock was _so_ deathly sick last year.”

“You know. No problem in the morning, afternoon I started feeling off and by quitting time my boss said 'You ain't gonna be in tomorrow or Thursday, good thing you'll have the weekend.' You know where the mine was, and where we lived. It was all I could do to shower and change clothes, and I wasn't sure I could walk half a block home. It was cold and damp and starting to snow.”

“Tell me you'd kept the first aid kit from the ship.”

“It's the only reason I'm sitting here talking to you. I crawled up the back steps and got the antivirals. Even with that, she was scared enough to call Dr. Cochrane. Everybody in town thought he was crazy, so even if he told them he was taking care of a little green man they'd have laughed. He told me I had pneumonia already and socked me full of penicillin. I was half with it, begging Maggie to get rid of the body if I died. He said not to worry, he'd tell people I was out of my head with fever, wandered off in the night and must have fallen in the river. He had the story ready so fast I wondered.”

“Always encouraging.”

“Worth getting sick to get to know Doc. His girlfriend was a rough old nurse, and the two of them delivered all the kids because we knew they'd handle anything we needed. When it came to the last baby, we needed a lot. Telling the kids she wasn't going to live was the worst thing I have ever had to do. I cranked up all the control I had left and still lost it when they went out of the room. All I could do was lay her in that little stasis box, with her soft pink blanket with hearts on it...” he shook his head. “Ah. Move along. Doc had sold his big house and lived in a guard shack at the old mine where his father had worked. We got to be friends. I could tell him anything. He mentioned a way of knocking down testosterone for old men who had prostate trouble, and even embarrassing as it was I asked if it would work on me. He didn't so much as blink, just wrote a prescription for whenever I would need it. That took the worry out of knowing she'd age before me, being afraid I would hurt her when she was older...I'm still too Vulcan to say it all.”

“That's loving her, to do that.”

“God knows I loved Maggie.” He twitched and moved his leg again. “Keep talking, that's the ticket.--I was so ignorant before that trip to Earth. My mother being a nurse, I knew more than most of the neighborhood, but more than nothing can still be very little. My bondmate barely kept me alive and neither of us had a good time before she left. When Maggie and I got married, she was ashamed of what she'd had to do before but not to talk with me about it. You know Surak, 'never waste knowledge, however it was gained'? Nobody else is here listening, and she thinks it's funny: the slats broke under the mattress and dumped us and the bed on the floor, and it took a couple minutes to realize. I got up saying 'You mean all the talk and songs and fights humans get into about it, _that's_ what all the fuss is about? No wonder!' and she laughed and told me there was more where that came from. Turned into one of my favorite things to do that cold winter.”

“I understand that!” He tallied up the time: three hours before he could. Had he really lived that much in less than two weeks? Sex was in the back of his mind, but not the first, most desperate thing. That was new. He watched the aching way Nick tried to find a better position. “Want help for that?”

“If you can. If not, it'll pass eventually.” He leaned over enough for Kirk to run a hand above his back and find the spike of pain. Spock might have used a thumb, but he tried his elbow on the pressure point and felt it release. “Ah, that's it.”

“You don't have to put up with that when there's a small army of us trained to deal with it. Can you use anything for that fever?”

He held up a packet. “Got it right here.” Kirk handed him more bourbon to wash down the pills. “Spock is well taken care of with you and Uhura and Bones. Boy needs keepers; one won't be enough.” Nick sighed. “Like my Bud. Big mouth, nobody could tell him anything and he always seemed lost. I know now he was cut off from half of himself. He ran off and married a girl he'd been with for two months, joined the Navy on a dare, got divorced before boot camp was over. When he went off active duty it took him almost two weeks to find his next wife. She treated him right but didn't take any crap from him. Their oldest, Dove, married Gabe Grayson and that's where Amanda came from.”

 _And there's another one he's mourning._ “I didn't realize she was yours by blood too.”

“Some of my grands have gone on for other reasons, three I don't know where they are on other planets, but she's the last one missing from va'Pak.” Nick's eyes were brimming. “For the twenty-seven I've talked to this afternoon, I owe you.”

Kirk had a sudden vision of a little boy gravely guarding his bowl of goldfish all the way across the portal. “Ru thought of it at the same time and if it weren't for Spock we wouldn't have been here. As for owing anybody, I'd have been totally lost after I died if it hadn't been for you and John.”

Nick gave that little half-shrug and half-nod and changed the subject. “About Bud. There was this virus that was going around, people who weren't careful. He picked it up in the 1990s, lived with it for thirty years. There were a lot of antivirals by that time, but the year his mother died seemed to take all the fight out of him. He lasted six months, and then. His wife let me come out and stay with them when he got that bad, so I was there. We brought some of his ashes back and hid them in the cemetery wall. The eugenics wars,World War III, that was all getting started and the grandkids had gone up to hide out on the rez. It was safer not to have any way for people to find out. So, that's when Lena and I took off. Patty was trying to hide and didn't want anything to do with us. Wouldn't you know she was still around at first contact? Met us in Bozeman. She had mellowed by then, but her kids didn't. She barely made it to a hundred and fifty, living hard as she did. She did let me be there at the end.” He shook his head. “Sarek is all right so far.”

Sarek came through too clearly: calm, but profound, completion, seeing what he had closed his eyes to before, the planet, and more than that; he was finally facing his entire life without fear of its consequences and without even passively seeking its end, kaiidth.

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart,” Nick agreed, having heard. “Tecumseh. Sky Panther. His father was Falling Star. Good Shanai names.” He was all but melting into the cushions. “Of all of them, I worried most about Sarek. Maybe this will help.”

He gulped coffee down the wrong way. “Watching the planet die?”

“If there's a lousy thing that hasn't happened to him, don't mention it or it will. The bondmate he lost, then he went to the research center, that really wasn't good, tried to be Skon's aide, got shot. No bondmate, no luck and not much of a life. Amanda was the only thing in his entire life that did work. Ah. Living in the twentieth century...”

By the time Nick ran through his top ten stories, Kirk wanted to go back and watch a baseball game at Forbes Field, play golf at Oakmont, attend a Carbon Creek wedding and eat a sandwich with corned beef, coleslaw and fries on it. For the first time in his life he made cookies because Nick dictated the recipe and walked him through it. “Mrs. Caich's recipe. My mother loved them. No wedding was complete without them on the cookie table.”

“Cookie tables are a custom that never should have gone away,” he agreed, watching the twists of sweet dough turn golden-brown. “Will they be different not being in an old-style oven?”

“Not enough to matter. The ingredients aren't exactly the same, either, but they're very close. Kaiidth cookies. They are what they are.”

The accumulated stress caused him to snicker. “Rana, John, Spock and Ru are picking up souls, Bones, Judy and Davy are taking care of the ton of injuries, Sarek is watching a planet disassemble itself, Lia is alternately picking up dead people and leading a revolution, Uhura is talking to the past and we're baking cookies.”

“And eating them,” Nick agreed as solemnly as he could. “Sometimes that's the best thing.”

The admiral and Lhairre returned, somewhat more slowly that time. “We picked up almost everyone in front of the portal. The priests from Gol came to take care of the rest. They're better at it. The idea that they have _practice_...” Lhairre raised an eyebrow. “Cookies.”

“And stories,” Nick said. “Now yours. You two haven't told any yet.”

“What's to--” Lia had to duck aside to field what sounded like another urgent call. She grabbed a cookie on her way to Sarek's study and shut the door behind her.

Nick smirked. “What's to tell, she was about to say as she went off to negotiate the fate of the Federation, or else where to put the antique sailing ships when they get in.”

“To her, it really isn't anything,” Lhairre said. He looked over the impromptu buffet and made himself a plate, then laid out one for her. “She'll tell you she took the job because no one else wanted it, which is true because the last three people who held it were murdered and the post was vacant for fifty-two years. Historically, the job belongs to a S'Harien, which she would be were the S'chn T'gai not the only clan on the planet that traced down the male line. Her brothers certainly didn't want it and none of the cousins were interested. When her research revealed unsavory things happening, she could no more have turned her back on those events than she could fly.”

“And you were with her the whole way,” Kirk said.

Lhairre inclined his head. “How could I not? I knew she was my wife when I was seven. T'Pau had in mind that she would make the bond in the usual ceremony...what it came time, there was nothing for her to do. That was the first time we had her not-angry-because-that-would-be-emotion with us. It certainly wasn't the last.”

“But she's not the one who...?”

“No. I can say that with confidence. She's a racist of epic proportions, and she would fight to hide any unsavory DNA results, but she wouldn't kill anyone. Her dedication to peace is even greater than her loathing for outworlders. Under her rule, we were supposed to be either ashamed or afraid of nearly everything. Next to that, even Rana seems easier.”

“That kid of mine,” Nick sighed. “It's not natural for anyone from her clans to be that stiff. Farmers, artisans, musicians...she's a silversmith and after she was poisoned this last time I noticed how much prettier her work is. Trellium-D might be the only thing that keeps her from dragging the planet even further down.”

Lhairre brewed a large pot of tea. “She meant well. I do understand that. She knows she has to keep the changes the Council made during the absence of the people, and she knows she took a lot of crap she shouldn't have, but she's...what can I say, I live with her daughter.”

“Elev?” Lia returned, looking concerned at whatever he had sent.

“Your mother, the changes, the idea of a traitor among the Elders...”

“Oh.” She took the plate he handed up to her, but set it down and began to rub his shoulders. “That can all wait until the job is done. The Navy choir wanted to sing. I asked them to wait.”

“Let me guess.” Lhairre was melting under her hands. “They wanted to sing the anthem.”

“I can't take that just yet. Not until everyone is back safely.”

“It wasn't your fault. No one could have known the _Narada_ was from the future unless they were so tight with Hakeev that—he didn't even let Mijne find out and they were lovers.”

“I should have been able to get something. By definition, the ultimate fault is mine.”

It had to be an old argument; Kirk could feel Lhairre mustering an old response. “I suppose the Klingons should have known, too, when it cut across the corner of their space?”

“Klingons care nothing for intelligence. Forty-seven warbirds...thirty of which returned with the time shift, but even so. All they saw was a thing near their space, natural or not, that could be blown up if only they shot at it enough. I should have had better assets in place.”

Hadn't he had this argument with Spock a few dozen times since va'Pak? “The song?” he asked, hoping to defuse the potential bomb.

“The only piece of pre-Reform music the Elders used to permit, and that only because the Navy might have mutinied. It is also the Romulan Navy anthem, despite the Tal Shiar's numerous fumbling attempts to replace it. Those have occasionally resulted in actual mutinies.”

“It won't scan in Standard,” Nick murmured. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, then began to sing softly. Kirk's translator had a hard time with it, but he got the gist, and also knew why Nick had passed his music test without an instrument: _Go to bed in peace tonight, though I am far away. Nothing would please me more than to know you sleep well. Seleya's wrath or desert storm, shaking earth or raving foe, I will defend you. Sleep, for I stand watch, sleep, for I stand ready_.

“To be a nirak and miss the whole point,” Lia muttered.

“You need the other verse, then.” _And if my post is overrun, I will retreat but not desert; my soul will not rest until you are safe and there is peace once more._ “What you're doing right now, isn't it?”

The one-word answer came out of her mouth in Standard: “Grandpa.” Nick must have understood the rest, judging by his ghost of a smile.

“You're all right, little one. In a few hours, you'll be able to sing the whole thing with the choir.”

She looked down at her padd. “So many we lost are no longer so, but there are still...Mijne.”

“You know how that was going to work out, no matter what.”

“I've been where she was, only my luck was better, my back was turned to the coolant, she was facing it. Lying there so sick, knowing she would die, she said 'You know you would have had to execute me eventually. I'd have been tempted to try a takeover. I'm not a safe person to have around. Do not mourn.' But I do.”

“She was so brave,” Lhairre agreed, laying his hand over Lia's. “Don't think of it, elev. Sit. Eat. You've run all day on one biscuit and I know Ta'an is hungry.”

Reluctantly, she sat and took the plate again, picking at fruit with a fork. “She was a prostitute,” she said to no one in particular. “I met her when we took over a prison. She had been thrown in for some dubious charge. I had to get rid of the Tal Shiar guards, was planning to take them off-planet. That did not work. She took her pick of their identities and took over as administrator. We smuggled almost ten thousand people out by pretending they died or were killed while escaping, then brought four thousand more with us and blew the place up when we left. She also extracted a remarkable amount of intelligence by getting visiting inspectors roaring drunk and offering them every pleasure they had ever imagined and some they hadn't. If T'Jhu is, as the Terrans say, my right hand, she was my left. The right hand didn't need to know what the left was doing. It might have died of shock.”

“Possibly. T'Jhu is rather innocent for someone in her position.”

“And I can be a _little_ overbearing for someone in mine.” Her eyes were still parsecs away. “But she was right, I know, Mijne I mean. She would have, eventually. I only hoped the time shift would have saved her a few good years. All it did was make her death not as awful.”

Lhairre nudged another grape onto her fork. “On the other hand, the twelve who were lost are now two, her and dear old T'Rouf, and all of the Klingons survived even if Ru does look even more ridiculously heroic.”

“I don't think T'Rouf would have had it any other way. Soul of a warrior.” She looked a little confused at the grape, but put it in her mouth. “Four-tenths of a second repaired a lot before. This time, it was point two five. All the Guardians will say is that there was deliberate temporal damage that has to be repaired in stages, and it isn't done yet.”

“Still not?” Ru came in with a loose herd of relatives and staff, including Skon and Rana. “Brothergrandpa didn't stay on Earth.”

“It makes no sense for me to slip through while the port is open,” Skon agreed, “but the situation in Carbon Creek is under control, Rana is here and the Guardians offered me fast transport. I do not excuse my illogic as regards my family.”

“You shouldn't have to,” Lhairre said before anyone else could. “Sarek?”

“I just talked to him. A hundred and twenty six people have been standing around the portal trying to talk him into coming over or letting us go to him, no one is allowed to do anything, and Chi says not to worry about it. As if we would admit to that,” Rana added as an afterthought. “What a very kind being she is, but how stubborn.”

Skon's tiny expression was clear as day to Kirk, and he nearly laughed. Spock's grandfather's face was familiar enough. He reacted to some poke and looked down at Rana's bump. “Because, Arre, they will not allow it. Of course I would retrieve your brother myself otherwise.”

“Ah, the multi-generational family,” Ru said. “Aunt-niece Arre. Such confusion used to be much more common on Vulcan, did it not, sa'mi?”

John hung up his robe. “Indeed. It was nothing unusual to see a man almost two hundred with a young wife and child, or an older woman with a second or third family younger than her grandchildren. Also, those born to surrogates because a mother could not host them, or where a bondmate was infertile and required material from someone else in the family, often with no mention that it had been done. That has been quite a revelation as we looked though the survivor DNA. What was on file is often not even close to the actual registry.”

“It certainly wasn't,” Rana muttered.

Spock was looking at his padd, with which he first nudged Uhura, then Kirk. “Mine appears to be correct. I am the child of Sarek and Amanda. Sa'kul Silek, I am not your son, regardless of rumor.”

That caused Silek to choke on his juice. “He _does_ have a sense of humor!”

“Eh, we knew they made up all sorts of things,” Rai shrugged. “Didn't _they_ , Rana?” His voice had a suitable edge of menace.

“Rai'kam, you know I was disgusting. I thought being as Vulcan as possible meant being ridiculously strict and trying to marry my sons to remarkably unsuitable women...or in your case, Silek, a woman, which was remarkably unsuitable. Lia, I heard you. Believe me, I have you outdone when it comes to being guilty. You did what you had to. I was being...” she searched for a Standard word, “a fehill'..no, an asshole.”

Lia choked on a bite of biscuit. Her father reached over and whacked her on the back. “Is there a problem, ko'fu'kam?”

“Oh, no, not a bit, sa'mi.” She pointed her chin at Nick, who had buried his face in a pillow to muffle painful hiccuping laughter. “However, I think we may have broken him.”

“Father is hiding to keep from agreeing with me,” Rana said with an inscrutable smirk. “He knows the rest of it, too. All truths are revealed in due... _time_.”


	21. The Return of the Not So Native

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And if you thought it had gotten silly before...  
> Numerous comeuppances await. Read and, I hope, be happy.

The first light of dawn was more on New Vulcan than orange. The souls were neatly packed in their repaired receptacle, the priests back in New Gol and whatever ritual schedule they had been trying to follow in their strange new world when that crisis broke out. The household staff of D'H' Riset were busily engaged in taking care of their own families only because Rana ordered them to. Otherwise, they would have been trying to tend to the antsy mass of S'chn T'gai who were tring to readjust to having aides and other staff.

Spock and Uhura went to look through the portal and returned. “Father continues to decline other options and reiterates his confidence in the Guardians' calculations.”

She glanced out the door at the portal. “I'm human, so I can say I hope they're right.”

“Ninety-four point two percent human,” Nick added, “but that's another story.”

“Hmmmm. I do have Maasai in the family.” Uhura handed him a cup of coffee. “He's still sitting in the shelter, waiting. Another hour and a half.”

“One hour, twenty-nine minutes and four seconds,” Spock corrected her with downcast eyes. “I have been trying to refrain from annoying you with excessive precision, but in this case it does matter.”

“Very much so,” she agreed, rubbing his back. The cookie tray was running low, so Ru made more to keep from going back out to join the crowd staring at the portal. “You know that won't do any good,” Uhura told him. “Can't see anything now for the dust and the shaking.”

“My logic, such as it is, is uncertain where my greatnephewfather is concerned.”

“Speaking of DNA awkwardness...”

“Oh, it's useful a lot of the time. Technically I'm his clan elder, so I can yell at him where Spock can't. Prime can have even more fun. He's an elderson.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kirk saw Sarek's mother look over the cookies. She must have decided no one was watching, because she snatched one up in her fingers and ate it. “I saw that, Rana,” Nick cackled. “We're a bad influence.”

“When it comes to what was the alleged purity of my Vulcan thought, many things are,” she said. “There will be remarkably severe consequences for what we have all done, yet I am unable to regret my own actions or those of the recovery teams.”

“You don't mind having a herd of k'turr around?”

“No, Daddy, I do not, but others are not at all content with that.” She paused. “How interesting. I have not called you that for quite some time. It must be James' influence.”

“You always did speak excellent colloquial Standard,” Spock said.

Rana looked down at him, arms folded. “Yes, but the question has always been: why? You are very much aware of how badly I treated you and your mother in my zeal to be the most Vulcan of Vulcans. I was never off-planet until duty absolutely demanded it, and I avoided speaking anything but Golic. Yet I understand Standard and can speak as a native.”

“Indeed a conundrum.”

“I do not think so.” She moved to stand before Nick. “O'sa'mekh. More to the point, _Daddy_. I am not 'named for' the last child you had with Maggie. We are one and the same, are we not?”

“Of course.” Nick gazed up at her, his eyes so full of broken-hearted love that Kirk almost cried himself. “What else were we going to do, sweetheart? You were so sick and there was nothing any of us could do. When you first let me know things weren't right, I went down to the wreck and got the parts to build that little box. Of course I knew how. My old man pioneered the use of stasis boxes for produce shipment and the Navy trained me to maintain the ones aboard ship. It's the first thing my famil thinks of. No one then could fix that profound a defect in a baby that premature, but we couldn't give up. In my original time, it was barely possible, but I knew the work was underway when I left. If we could keep you in stasis, we knew one day you could live. It turned out to be a simple matter of giving you a single dose of medication to make the defect close itself, then waiting for you to grow.”

Rana folded her arms, quirking the corner of her mouth and looking uncannily like Lia when she was about to drop the hammer on someone. “And letting me think I was the daughter of T'Mir.”

“Your kinswoman. Consider the times, ko'fu'kam, and that she cherished you as her own child. The civil war may have seemed short, but the run-up to it was appallingly long. It's also why I went back into cold storage. They couldn't torture your ancestry out of me and use it against you. By the way, your fake DNA was cribbed from T'Les', but she approved that. It was the correct clans.”

“To reverse the Terran expression, 'papa's baby, mama's maybe.' I _am_ yours--?”

He held up his padd. “Look at it. You're mine to the core, and you're still a S'Harien. Maggie's grandmother Meri crashed the _L'Langon_ on the border between Serbia and Croatia. Her very human mate adored her, by the way.”

“S'Harien Meri. The first musician in space, going off to observe Terran musical styles, long considered to have been lost on the mission. What happened to her?”

“The 1918 flu epidemic got her and Maggie's mother on the same day. That's why your poor mother nearly lost her mind when I got sick. Mike said she sang like an angel. Damn flu took both of them out in a matter of hours.”

Uhura planted a fist on her hip and stared Spock down. “ _Now_ will you listen?”

“Yes, aduna.” His voice was a squeak as the combination of stress and shock put paid to his best intentions of maintaining control. “My own DNA results make a great deal more sense now. I had assumed they were the result of genetic engineering.”

“They didn't do anything fancy. Amanda's too much iron gene is a pain in the neck on Earth and even a single copy was rough on T'Khasi with all the rust in the sand. It's why she was sick all her life on planet. You had Sarek's copy of the bad heart valve gene, which wouldn't affect you but they fixed it so your kids wouldn't have trouble if you married another carrier. Both are nothing more than routine modifications they do for anybody conceived in vitro. It's always risky to try for a Vulcan-Human child, but it usually works.”

Kirk needed to sit down. “How long have people known there were so many hybrids?”

“Why do you think the civil war happened?” Lia had come in unnoticed, a testament to her tradecraft. “The purity of Vulcan ancestry has been a boast forever. The fiction that Romulans are mysterious outliers and not renegade Vulkansu, the equally ridiculous fiction that it is impossibly difficult for humans and Vulcans to produce viable children...a lot of people told a _lot_ of lies in order to get and maintain power. After doing so, they convinced themselves it was logical to kill in the effort to suppress the Kir'Shara. Hybrids have advantages many never consider, such as resistance to radiation on Earth and various poisons on Vulcan. Mental controls that work against Vulcans of pure ancestry don't against Betazoid hybrids and really don't when human or Klingon ancestry is involved. A Terran-Vulcan high dept, or worse yet an empath, is capable of, let's just say, remarkable things. That endangered the rule of the Masters of Gol, so they decided, quite logically, to eliminate all opposition even though that required deception, unthinkable mind invasion, time distortion and murder.”

“Daughter,” Rana whispered, “who is it?”

“T'Janae confessed. She altered the simulations so we would assume the situation was safer than it was. She sought to assure racial purity by ruining those rescue efforts. She had help, of course. You would be well aware of the other suspects.”

Rana recited five names that meant little to Kirk other than vague recollections of the passenger list after va'Pak. Lia nodded gravely at each. “Also Roskov, who abetted for his own interests?”

“His handlers'. He and his people wish for a weak and helpless remnant of Vulcan and a deceived Federation. The admiral will be answering _my_ questions soon enough.” Her tone made Kirk cringe. “Oh come on, Jim, you knew he was up to no good when he ran away and left us with half of the disloyal Romulan Third Fleet and a carefully selected chunk of the Klingon Empire after us. That is for later. Less than ten minutes remain until the implosion. This rescue must conclude, and after, the real work begins. In the middle of these revelations, I suggest we go to wait for Sarek.”

The portal in the street was surrounded by a huge crowd trying to get a glimpse of T'Khasi's last moments. Lia's guards parted the sea for them. The main view was a smaller portal, shrinking itself to a size that would fit a person, at the base of the cliff below the elders' chamber, framing Sarek. He wasn't answering calls, but he did move around occasionally, looking up as if in prayer. “He is being more obstinate than he was as a small boy. I really should go get him,” John said.

“You know better.” Nick leaned heavily against him. “I can't and you shouldn't.”

“They will not let me.” Spock pressed a hand to the portal, suddenly as solid as a glass wall.

“They'll let _me_.” The Andorian in blue spandex marched forward and slammed bodily into the portal, then let fly with a number of interesting words because of his injured chin.

“Oh for--” Lia growled, “Shras, you extremely brave idiot, let me.” She also bounced off, much harder. She and Rana exchanged glances, backed off, then charged together with Shras joining them belatedly. That didn't work in an even more spectacular way.

“Five minutes,” Spock said, too clearly agitated.

Kirk put a hand to the calming spot on his back. “He knows what he's doing.”

“Since when?” Spock raised an eyebrow. Uhura nailed him in the ribs with an elbow.

Ru paced around the portal, grumbling under his breath. “I heard that,” the portal said almost cheerfully. “You won't do any good and we won't let you mess it up, so settle.” There were struggling noises from the crowd; Captain Rai seemed to have a bloody nose and Lia was giving Lhairre all the squirming rage he could handle. “Or you, Admiral. We understand, but all you're going to do is put more bruises on your favorite people and make your baby angry. Do something useful and deploy one of those air pads you use to cushion landings. The civilian hovercraft size will do.”

The gray uniforms—Kirk realized, however belatedly, they were admiralty staff—hustled off and came back less than a minute later with a pad they inflated, setting it where Chi directed.

“Thirty seconds,” the Andorian snarled. “Come on, get out of there, you...you nirak!”

While Skon paced in genteel distress, dust left suspicious streaks on Rana's cheeks. She shot a glance at Kirk. “So what? I just found out I'm half human and my little boy is over there.”

“No arguments from me,” Kirk said, squinting into the gloom. Something was coming...

Three somethings, followed by a really big rock.

“Spock! Great big rock is not ours!” Chi yelled. Spock darted forward, phaser in hand. Before Kirk could think _Huh?_ Ru joined him. A dust-begrimed figure whumped onto the pad, bouncing lightly, followed by a second and third stacking on it. Both brothers vaporized a very, very large and threatening rock two feet above the stack of people so the only fallout was a huge heap of sand and pebbles. The far portal shrank itself to toy size, popped through, landed gently on top of the last humanoid shape, then scooted aside as Chi turned off the view.

“Damn, you two are good,” Lia said. “That rock, all I could have done was throw a knife at it.” She walked over to the pile of people and sand. The thing on the bottom was face down, a male-shaped lump on top of it crosswise muttering and swearing in three languages, and something female-shaped on top of the pile face down on the middle one's back.

“Ow,” said the bottom one with immense dignity.

John stepped out of the crowd, bent down and brushed off dust until a head emerged. “Most agreeable to see you, osu Stalek.”

“I concur, osu Solkar.” The elderly Council member discreetly spat a mouthful of dirt. “I _thought_ I remembered being crushed by Surak's statue, then I believed myself to have run outside only to fall as the shelf crumbled. I should be dead at the bottom of the cliff. Most agreeable to be...wherever this is...even in a rather flattened state.”

“I think this is one of the Twenty-Five Positions In Which It Is Impossible To Have Sex,” John said, then paused. “I said that aloud, did I not?”

“You did. However, osu Solkar, you are correct in my experience.”

“Just so, osu Stalek,” John said, mustering his considerable dignity. “You seem largely uninjured. Is it possible for you to slide in this direction?”

The middle layer made a small muffled unhappy wheeze at the motion, but the elder extricated himself with John's help and set his robes straight. “I take it the rest of the Council...?”

“Is well,” said one of the bystanders, “although, as you see, there have been some changes.”

Stalek took in the very pregnant woman and her mate. “Ah. Mina, I see Kolinahr did not agree with the new arrangements. The suddenness of it, I cannot fathom.”

“It seems sudden to you. Believe me, Jorek and I perceive it quite differently. Come, we will explain it if such is even possible.” The three of them went off, Mina gesturing aand Jorek giving detail, and they could hear the elder's “Rha'?”

Spock would have picked the top layer off, but it seemed to have attached itself rather firmly to the one beneath it, so he contented himself with brushing off six inches of dirt from the head end until eyeballs appeared. “Mother. It is pleasant to see you again.”

“I'll second that emotion,” Amanda panted, and spat a chunk of Mount Seleya onto the street. “This is another of those things you and your father have to explain, isn't it?”

“That is a remarkably accurate assessment.” He helped her up and let her embrace him, not that he wasn't all but broadcasting his urge to hug the stuffings out of her.

“Goodness, you're shaking like a leaf. That was the longest five minutes of my life, and it felt as if the whole planet was destroying itself, but honestly, Spock, I'm fine.” She shoved handfuls of grit off her shoulders and out of her hair as she looked around. “Quite a crowd. I thought we were going up to your ship, Spock. Where are we? The middle of Shanai Road, but it doesn't look quite right. For one thing, Seleya is not angry, or even there.”

“It's an exceptionally long story, t'sai,” Uhura said smoothly, “and you were absolutely correct. It's going to take lengthy explanations, preferably while you're sitting down.”

“I see. Sarek, adun, did I hurt you landing on you?”

It was an exceptionally patient answer through gritted teeth. “Yeeeees.”

Shras bent down. “Your back?” The remaining, seriously out of breath heap of dust nodded in a very delicate fashion and coughed, then muttered some choice words in Standard. “Not broken?” It shook its head with equal care, and Shras reached down to lift him by the scruff.

“Better let me check first,” John said, and ran his hands above the sand deposit. “No, it's only out of place and the wind is knocked out of him. There is no serious damage. Here, let me fix that.” The crackles and crunches John elicited from the bent parts sounded like popcorn.

Shras began to laugh. “I've seen Vulcans do some ridiculously brave things, but this one was as ridiculous as it was brave. Come on, up and at 'em.” He hauled Sarek to his feet. “Quit looking at me like that...okay, I _think_ you're looking at me like that. She's right there. Good Maker of All, this was crazy even for you.”

“Just so,” Sarek whispered. “And I have inhaled a planet.” He fumbled in his pocket. Kirk realized what he was after and tossed him his own asthma inhaler. “Kirk, I am obliged.”

“Think nothing of it, sa'mi.” Amanda gave him a very odd look.

Amid the mayhem, T'Jhu looked around, consulted her padd and saluted Lia crisply. “Admiral, with the arrival of t'sai Amanda, the planetary evacuation is complete.”

Lia nodded gravely, just as if she was not simultaneously trying to hold pressure on Rai's nose and cling to Lhairre. “Inform me of any problems with the arrangements for relocation.”

“Rekkhai, may we now?” the choirmaster inquired.

“Of course. I believe I will join you.”

Some of the Masters of Gol had carried T'Pau and her bondmate out in a sedan chair. The two sighed in unison at all of the gratuitous hugging and singing going on. “Such emotionalism,” her husband said, even though he seemed to be holding her hand. “I believe the admiral's voice has not suffered from her long exile.”

“I would say 'what is this world coming to,' but it appears the answer was 'an end.' This new one appears agreeable. I believe you are correct about the esthetic qualities of the admiral's voice even if she is so k'turr.” She waved to the attendants, who began to walk off with the chair past Sarek, who was either embracing Amanda, letting her hold him up, or both. “Sarek. A little public decency.”

Nick snorted. “T'Pau, that's the most decent thing you're ever going to see. Go off with your mate and try to get a clue.” T'Pau scowled, but her bearers went on. “Meh. I don't have to be scared of her. Not my clan, not my monkeys.”

John kept his amusement to a mild smirk. “In your current state, you wouldn't be afraid if it were your entire circus. Why don't you go lie down?”

“Ah hell, I just got more of my kids back, I'm good.”

“You need to rest after all of this. Speaking of that, we should go inside.” Lhairre draped his brother-in-law's free arm over his shoulder, since Sarek was leaning on Amanda with the other, and half-turned to the crowd, speaking Standard. “Thank you, you've been a great audience. We'll be here all week and for the foreseeable future until the planet eventually rematerializes when we fix the _Kelvin_ mess.”

Ru put on his best commercial pilot face and voice. “Enjoy your stay and thank you for flying Air Galactica.” Even among the bemused crowd, there seemed to be a general inability to avoid smiling.


	22. Lengthy Explanations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Being dead was going around. Almost everybody got over it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hwiiy verrul'=Romulan (or Old Golic) for "you're an idiot."

Kirk spent most of the day alternately napping and checking on his Vulcans, all of whom were as limp as wrung-out towels. Injuries they hadn't allowed to register in their minds during the crisis had surfaced, emotions they had repressed had the bad habit of boiling out at inopportune times and causing them to hide and meditate, and most of them were passing around a nasty head cold they had picked up from a sick Kiri unit at the Salt Marsh. Uhura tired of Spock's attempted heroics and hauled him off to his room. Even John's bondmate Hana, the all but indestructible Marine nurse, took to their bed and insisted he and her snuffly little girl accompany her.

The illnesses weren't life-threatening, only annoying, and were well within Kirk's abilities when he was arguably the least busy and least affected by recent events. He found himself assigned to make house calls to the past rescues, stopping by the quarters of people he had met in mortal danger and most of the time leaving relieved by the state they were in now, even if they were sneezing messily.

The original Sarek, or rather Sa'awek in his own accent and calligraphy, needed a visit in his Shanai City quarters because of his still fragile physical state. Kirk found the healer arguing gently with T'Ekkhes, the other surviving Shanai Guards medic. “But there is so much to see.”

“One day, Sa'awek, you may walk around this new city and look at it to your heart's content, but at the moment it is not logical.”

“Neither are you, and you're worrying excessively. I don't think your new training is sticking.”

“It is perfectly logical for you to have a visit rather than going to the clinic. You know those new kidneys are still growing into all their connections. You've already picked up this virus that's making the rounds. The more you roam around, the more you'll expose yourself to—Hello, Sikar.”

“You called, Healer Ekkhes?”

“Yes. There is modern medication for that virus, is there not?”

“There is. I verified he could take it with his conditions. One injection and a three-day course of pills should prevent any damage to his new kidneys.” He handed over the spray and let Sa'awek use it on himself. The healer's curiosity was beginning to show, like a buried bulb sprouting.

“The times I could have used a device like this! Think of how quickly we could have managed pain relief, just for one thing. We all could have used the meditation classes. I'm not about to subscribe to no emotions at all, however. That would be more _her_ idea.” He poked at his co-worker.

“Hwiiy verrul,” she snorted, rubbing at the wrist wrap that was regenerating her missing hand. “This itches mightily.--Paying a little attention to the new peaceful ways makes more sense than going back to war every year. That reminds me, when this grows back all the way, the first thing I'm going to do is hit you with it. That very tall kinsman who is a healer, Solkar, is a priest, is he not? We're going to need his services soon. Forty-seven years of working together and now I'm going to _have_ to marry this one.” The absolute martyrdom of her expression belied what he could feel. Did she know how strongly they were both projecting, or did they care?

“I'll tell Solkar to stop by. Is it urgent?”

“Not immediately,” Sa'awek said, oozing gratitude for not needing to explain. “It's more a matter of, ah, our cohabitation. We're both feeling _much_ better, you see.”

Oh. Apparently, premarital sex wasn't a thing on Vulcan back then, either. He drew one of the blood fever packets from his bag and discreetly dropped it on the table, where Sa'awek noticed it and nodded his thanks. “I'll have him come over as soon as he's available.”

“Your service has been exemplary,” T'Ekkhes said. “Your Sarek was truthful when he said I would be surprised when I awoke. The explanations have been stunning. My brain aches from all the information we've been absorbing over the past few days.”

“I understand, believe me!” He thought back to the insane difficulty of the medic seminar, then was surprised at himself. It had worked. The bad situations and lost patients had been expected. He had imagined himself to be in over his head, and still, he hadn't drowned in the situation. “You're going to resume your careers?”

“As soon as we can. There is so much to know. Also, many of the people you retrieved may need to be coaxed toward current remedies. Perhaps we can deal with them best using a blend of new and old methods.” She eyed him carefully. “Aaaand...some of the ShiKahri are still nervous enough to be concerned about help from a most kind and agreeable Syrannite.”

“It's worse than you know. I'm actually Terran.”

“Honestly!” She cocked her head, a distant echo of Spock's _Say_ _ **what**_ _?_ posture. “I commend your training, your ability to be Vulcan when you needed to. I could swear you have Syrannite blood. For all the world you feel like a Kril'es. Eh. More for me to learn, as if there weren't enough already!”

“It _was_ a little daunting to have the Science Academy medical faculty quizzing us about our times and what drugs and procedures we used,” Sa'awek admitted. “I rather expect to be offered a seat in a glass case in some museum. If so, she has to be there with me.”

“Your spouses...oh, that's right, you were both alone.”

“My wife died six years ago, by my time, and her husband was killed in the Golan excursion three decades past.” Kirk heard _Which was a good thing, because he was a rotten husband and a worse soldier_. “Life will be different now, but I cannot fault the company I must keep.”

“Speak for yourself,” she grumbled, and wrapped an arm around him, no doubt to support him.

Kirk took his leave, refreshed by their grouchy love. They might be in over their heads, but if they couldn't swim they would build a boat. So would he. He hadn't drowned in the medic course and he hadn't in anything before it either. If only nine had lived through Tarsus 4 and one was left alive now, that was one more than Kodos had intended. Back after his death, in that hospital fog just before daybreak, he recalled a Vulcan voice—John's?--saying “Spock, the loss was planned to be total; the one must stand for the many. We must rise, we must live. A single rescue is victory.” Any rescue. Rise. Live. He was more than none.

 

Dinner in the north springhouse at the Fort was more formal than Kirk expected, with the staff back and determined to do their jobs as if nothing had happened. He recalled the first days on New Vulcan, when people worked so hard on what looked like hopelessly overscaled projects to keep routine. The newly returned head cook had tsked at the state of the rearranged kitchens, opened the retrieved pantry containers and laid on a dinner that left most of them pleasantly stuffed.

The big spring at the north end of the fort had been the family gathering place. Having two water sources must have seemed like incredible wealth. Their little knot of people in the huge reconstructed room had been a sad reminder of the lost planet before; now he saw why it was so big, lined with benches and small tables along the walls for the young or k'turr and carpeted with thick mats on which most of the dozens of older or more traditional people sat in loose nuclear family and friend groups surrounding the center fire pit. Tapestries, old weapons and musical instruments decorated the stone walls. Amanda kept looking around, shaking her head. “It isn't D'H'Riset, but it is. It isn't collapsing around my ears, and for some reason, most of our things are undamaged and in it.”

Sarek nodded. “The staff was very efficient at evacuating. You'll find this planet neither as rich in iron nor as hot, which should minimize the ill effects Vulcan had on you. The rescue's energy needs and the attendant emergency construction have cooled it markedly. During the battles; I stood in snow in the street. As for our belongings, much is not unpacked. I have not yet replanted all of your roses. We have changed the furniture in the conference room, and also, the residents have rearranged to some extent. I have been sleeping across the hall from our former quarters.”

“When you sleep at all. Amanda, we can move elsewhere if you'd like your old rooms,” Ru's wife offered as she passed yet another dessert tray.

“Nonsense. This isn't the old place and we could use a change. You'll have the...well, soon we'll have a baby too, but we never used the little room as a nursery when Spock was small. He insisted on being with us and I don't imagine James will be any different. It makes a very nice office for you.”

“I have the feeling whatever James wants, James will get,” Judy said with a grin. The happiness radiating from the baby's tank, snug between his parents, warmed the room even more. He didn't seem too sure about why he was in a growth bag instead of his mother's womb, but as long as they were both near and he could find his extended family, most especially Solkar, he was content.

That morning they had all taken Sarek inside, away from anyone outside the family, and shoved him into the private quarters before he had a chance to collapse. Davy had gone in to see to his health and come out looking pleased. “Nothing seriously wrong with either of them, just toasted and tired. Give them some time.” They had been secluded for several hours, and when they emerged, Sarek still looked pale, shaky and unable to let go of Amanda, who looked downright gobsmacked. Spock looked stable by comparison, though Kirk felt him inwardly shaking like a bowl of jello and hanging onto Nyota with all the strength of their ever-growing bond.

Doubtless Amanda knew the inner condition of her men, yet chose to be Vulcan and ignore it. Before the rescue, Kirk had not seen more than a few distant, dusty pictures of her from the planet's fall. In fresh clothing with the sand rinsed off and her scrapes and bruises tended, she proved to be a slender, graceful human whose thick dark hair had the same heavy wave as Nick's. Those dark eyes were Spock's, capable of a warm smile even if the rest of her face never moved, but leaving the impression that she bore enough inner steel to be a match for any of the powerful women around them. “I still think I must be dead, but this certainly is a pleasant afterlife.”

“Being dead was going around.” Nick, half-lying on a mat, reached for more coffee, winced and let Spock hand it to him. “Almost everybody got over it.”

“I...see...Grandpa. That conference room furniture is very nice,” Amanda said. “Much prettier and more comfortable than what was, er, not exactly in here, but there. It looks Romulan.”

“It is. Jim brought it and Sarek's desk chair from the ship that crashed during the first battle.”

“The ship that crashed. The _first_ battle. _Jim_.” She eyed him up and down. “You have pointed ears, but something is not quite right.”

“They're fake,” Bones said. “He's human and just temporarily greenish and pointy.”

“We also named him Sikar so we wouldn't have to call him 'hey you' during the Battle of Mount Seleya,” John added. “He's George Kirk's son, Ty and Lena's grandson.”

“Oh!” He didn't know why, but that clearly mattered to Amanda. “You serve on Spock's ship?”

Spock bailed him out of the awkward explanation. “Mother, I am no longer the captain. Jim is. Leonard is the ship's doctor. Nyota is--” she elbowed him before he could say anything interesting, “our _communications officer_ who made the rescue possible. Our ship was badly damaged on another occasion and we are all on loan to the Vulcan Navy for this mission.”

“I approve most heartily of your _communications officer_ ,” Amanda shot a grin at Nyota, who matched it, “but...you're not the captain in spite of this?” She poked the tiny insignia on his collar and raised an eyebrow at Lia. “I understand Ru, of course, but Spock and his friends also seem to have acquired the Order of the Talon.”

Her sister-in-law was nearly asleep with a tea mug in her hand, head propped against Lhairre's shoulder as he dozed on a bench. She yawned and waved a hand at the Starfleet crew. “Believe me, he earned it. They all did. The Battle of Green Sands alone would have sufficed, but they did much more. Some of which involved having ancient Vulcan babies chew on them. That should be its own medal.”

“I may be missing some chest hair thanks to little Kril'es Korsau. That was a very interesting time,” Sarek said mildly. He was letting the staff field the endless media requests for quotes and interviews; Kirk sensed that explaining James to Amanda had been enough of a task to fry his brain. “I did not get married again even though they _all_ tried to find me mates. Including Silek.”

“Silek, I know you meant well, dear. I am pleasantly surprised by you and Rai. If I may ask, what happened to Hoshek's mother?”

Silek attempted not to smile too broadly. “She decided that in view of the scarcity of Vulcan women, it was logical for her to seek a different mate and make a further genetic contribution.”

Rai growled. “He means she ran off with Halek, who she's been s...” he caught his blunt Romulan just in time, “ _seeing_ on the side for some decades now.”

“Ahahaha. I should have known she would take off at the first chance. Can't say I'm sorry for the way it seems to have turned out.”

“Neither are we!” Silek beamed. “Neither of us likes sex that much, but you already know we like each other, a lot, and if we have to do it with someone--” Rai nailed his ribs with a very large elbow. “There are a lot of family crews on board his big beautiful ship. We're going to raise What's his name there because we'll be around both New Vulcan and Earth a lot.”

“He belongs to both of us,” Rai added. “Would have anyway, but I mean genetically.”

“Another very good thing. Apparently I wasn't gone for the few minutes it felt like. I never expected to be an aunt again.” Amanda rubbed her eyes, even though she had washed them out several times. Kirk suspected no amount of rubbing at them would make what she saw any more sensible. She blinked over at her sister-in-law. “Lia, forgive me for asking in public, but are you pregnant too?”

“If you wonder, this must be a flattering position, because it's obvious. She's already arguing with me about when to be born even though she should marinate another seven to eight weeks for best results. If you look around the room, you will note nearly every Vulcan woman who was already here, including Mother--” Rana shoved out her stomach to display her own bump-- “is with child. The majority of us are due within the next two to three months. It seemed necessary at the time.”

“So I have heard, so we'll be parents, uncle and aunt again and grandparents at almost the same time. It's _so_ good to see you again.” Amanda's face fell. “You'll be able to stay long enough to have the baby here, won't you? When do you have to go back?”

That got a slow, sleepy smile and a little bubble of contentment from her baby. “We don't. You're stuck with me. We brought our fleet with us, so we're back on this side now until we finish the reunification. That side is too hot to let me go see how their civil war is going.”

Lhairre's parents leaned over and waved at her. “We plan to care for the new one often,” his mother said, “but you may have to stand in if I have to go be the Praetor.”

“Your Romulan fleet, here. Jisit may have to be Praetor. Reunification. Battles. Civil war. Nice comfortable furniture instead of the unpadded stone and plastic boxes from hell. I need to do a _lot_ of reading.”

“You also have to come up and see our flagship and hear about what Spock, Nyota, Jim and Ru did. Some of it is going to scare hell out of you. I just had to dissuade a sculptor who was ready to put up yet another monument, that one featuring Mother and me.”

“Also, Ru is a Cheyenne war chief now,” Davy said cheerfully.

“So is Spock,” Ru protested.

Spock lifted a forefinger. “But you were a war chief first.”

“But _you_ actually have some good claim to it and they didn't have to do making of relatives.”

“Boys. Kroykah.” Amanda set down her coffee cup carefully. In deep thought, she ticked off four items on her fingers and slowly shook her head. “I can understand leading a war party, counting coup by taking at least one prisoner and taking weapons from the enemy, but how in the galaxy did you two manage to steal a horse in space?”

“Hey, Sunshine,” Ru called. The fvav in question stuck her head around the corner, sized up the state of the crowd and went to Nick for petting. “A pervert Romulan had her. She was too cute to leave on a ship we were planning to blow up.”

“Ru only had a quarter of his liver at the time,” Shras said in admiration. The Andorian ambassador looked horribly overheated in spite of Sarek's aides quietly keeping his ice packs fresh, but he seemed as unable to leave the gathering as the rest. “Klaar's friendly Klingons were so pleased with him they ate the rest in his honor. Paint him blue and send him over. The Imperial Guard could use him.”

Ru ducked his head modestly. “He'd look really good in that tight uniform,” Judy agreed.

Shras guffawed. Sarek tried not to smile. “Is Thelan progressing well?”

“Very well. We have all been to see her. She is resting at the moment.”

“Those were painful injuries. Her courage honors your line.”

Shras bowed his head slightly in proper thanks. “There is much honor to go around. This has been an incredible...” He lifted his head, sapphire eyes wide. “Retrieval. Would it work for us?”

Sarek hadn't thought of it either. While his face and voice maintained Kirk actually heard him think _Holy shit, that will work!_ in Standard. “We should inquire of the Guardians. They have assisted in the rescue of many animal and plant species, they have rescued us...surely it cannot be a problem.”

“We lost so very many in the battle of P'Jem, and many more in our previous warring with our neighbors. Anyone we could bring forward would be a help. If we can find the extinct lines, survivors of the ancient houses...This may change much for us.” He got up, extending a hand to Amanda while he pressed the ice to his throat with the other. “Sarek, you I won't touch with a ten-foot pole, but Amanda, I look forward to arguing with you and your husband for many years to come. Spock, see what you've done? I am going to go bring that excellent idea up forthwith.”

“Just what we need,” Sarek called after him, “more Andorians.” Shras made a rude gesture as he left. Kirk raised an eyebrow at Sarek, who went on “It is true. We need more Andorians.”

“Did I say anything?” _No, but you thought it_ came back at him. “It would be a reasonable assumption that you were making a joke. You're only...”

“Twenty-one point seven five percent,” Sarek finished, looking at his padd. “That must be the percentage of me that is still tired.”

“You don't want to overstrain.” In the comfortable knot of mostly k'turr family, Amanda had slouched her head against his side, and now looked puzzled. “Your heart is not squeaking.”

“The valve repair was a minor addition to the other corrections.” He stretched out his left hand and fanned the fingers. “This also works normally now.”

“You don't limp, your hands are fixed, your heart doesn't leak and still this is allegedly _not_ some alternate reality.” Her eyes sharpened in suspicion. “Lia.” The admiral glanced up. “Hoya.”

“Saxa,” Lia replied immediately with eyes alight.

Silek stirred. Still half asleep, he spelled out “H-O-Y-A-S.”

Amanda conceded the point. “Let's go, Georgetown. You're you.”

“It has been a remarkable two weeks, following a remarkable year, but most of the remarks I would have made about it before the past four days would have been exceptionally rude and unmistakably emotional.” Sarek stood, shouldered the baby bag and held out two fingers. “My wife, attend. I've been waiting to say that. Come, James, we all need a rest.”

Amanda got up and made an awkward stretch to kiss Spock on the forehead without letting go of Sarek's hand. “Whatever in the worlds you did, I'm glad you did it. And thank you, Jim.”

“Just typical,” Bones muttered, “everybody forgets the doctor.”

Spock thumbed up another DNA profile. “If it makes you feel better, Doctor, your only Vulcan is a quite distant foremother who no doubt accounts for your medical skill.”

“I never looked at mine,” Kirk said, and reached for his padd. “What the hell?”

“Dumb genius,” Nick yawned, “how long was it going to take you?”

He stared at the profile, the marked matches, the impossibility of having blundered toward the half-asleep people around him and especially the one beside him. “I really can't run from family.”

“Not from mine. If I weren't such a mess at the moment, I would make some snarky comment to disguise my actual feelings yes feelings emotions that crap. As it is, I'll just say when it comes to great-grandsons I coulda done a helluva lot worse.”

Spock leaned over his shoulder, read the padd and said, in a completely proper tone, “This explains much.” The undercurrent of warmth washed over Kirk: _mine, kinsman, no wonder, t'hy'la_. “Lena Kirk was, at one time, Lena Mestral. McCaslin was her first husband's last name.”

“That's why you asked about her.” He met Nick's eyes, begging forgiveness, and found no fault assigned. “She went away to save me.”

“You followed her orders like you should have because you were a kid. If I know her at all, she didn't give up. I asked because I thought there might be a chance, and still do.”

“I sent them as soon as I knew there was a need,” Lia said, leaving a vague image of rolled-up sleeves and a small fast ship. “They should send word in a day or two. It isn't as far as it seems.”

“The universe keeps shrinking,” Nick agreed. “Jim, I couldn't come out and tell you. I didn't know what either of you would think and I, er, wasn't a hundred percent sure you two hadn't _ahem_.”

“Inbreeding is not a concern.” Spock momentarily retreated behind the Great Wall. “Even had it been, my parents are distant cousins, after all.”

“Meh, so are mine.” Nick looked down at a picture of his parents. “Most of Vulcan is. If we'd left it up to the conspirators, we'd have been even more so. Racists are seldom as bright as they think. The Vulcan-of-Vulcans line they thought they wanted is actually a jumble of ShiKahri, specifically Shanai, and Syrannite with Betazoid, Terran and a few grains of Klingon and Rigellian. If you're going to create the purest of the pure, you shouldn't use people who go off their clan grounds and then off-planet, get curious about other people, get to know them, care what they think, get drunk, get laid...”

“I resemble that remark.” John stretched an arm over the back of the bench in Nick's general vicinity. “There are few lines of pure Vulcan DNA. Mestral's happens to be one.”

“Nobody exotic wants to marry a farmer. The only way _we_ got mixed around was to get in the way of an army. That, or join the Navy, see the nine worlds and leave children on all of them.”

“Daddy, you need more bourbon.” Rana nudged the bottle toward him. John fetched himself a glass and refilled Nick's while she consulted a document. “The guilty elder's criteria for the next generation were quite strict: no psi-nulls, no hazel eyes, no curly, wavy, brown, red or blonde hair, no very pale or very dark skin.” She tucked the padd into her pocket and moved to stand beside her husband, eyeing him speculatively. “Perfection was, hmm, moderately tall, thin, black straight hair, olive skin, very dark but not black eyes, psi-normal to adept but not warrior adept and absolutely not empath.” She looked up at the standing embodiment. “It seems she may have been fond of you.”

“She did attempt to have Mother bond us as children. They didn't take the offer.” Skon drew a deep breath and took Rana's hands, both of them, fully held in both of his own and nearly to his lips, in public. “I am...glad. To hell with her rotted logic.” In the silence where a pin dropping would have sounded like a crashing boulder, he went on in his tiny soft voice: “Look at you. The things she wished to discard were the purest of Vulcan blood. The things she wanted were Betazoid, Klingon, Human. Her dislike of you was illogical at its heart.” He bowed his head to hers over their hands, moving in as close to her as he could get without an actual embrace. “Racism is the ancient madness.”

“Which we are well rid of--” Rana looked down at her baby bump. “Arre, do you _mind_? We were having a moment here!”

“Also, ko'fu'kam, kicking is acceptable, but please watch the position of your feet,” Skon squeaked. “That was unanticipated and most uncomfortable.” Rana muttered something. “That might be helpful, aduna.”

“If it isn't, ashayam, it'll be entertaining. Oh, did I say that aloud? It must be the Trellium-D aftereffects.” She glanced at Kirk as she went by. “He does have sa'mi's hair. As osu Surak said, let us combine our differences with great enthusiasm.”

The translator rendered it one way for him, his brain another, picking up the shifted accent that changed it all. Nyota graciously waited until Rana and Skon were down the hall before she giggled and poked at Spock. “What an excellent idea,” she said. “Provided you were awake.”

Spock opened one eye. “I was _meditating._ ”

“Without incense, in public. You often snore when you meditate?” Bones grumbled. “I don't need instruments to know you're exhausted. Go back to bed, already. And take her with you.”

Nyota chuckled. “Doctor's orders, Junior. This has been a very long...however long it _has_ been.”

Zora coaxed Nick to his feet. “Come on, you. They're as accounted for as they can be tonight.”

“Twenty-seven,” he murmured. “Not bad. Ow. Damn. Still hurts. You won't have any fun with me here. I'm still mean.”

“It's liable to be at its worst today or so. I'll walk back with you,” John said. “Zora, I don't like his fever. One of us needs to look at that wound, and I know you're a little, um.”

“Squeamish,” Zora agreed. “He's a medic, I'm not, and he has more scenic spots than that.”

The brush of John's mind past Kirk's filled it in: _And I wish, but it isn't happening_.

People continued to drift out of the room until he and Bones were alone at the fire, warm and tired in the silence. He could still pick up the background hum of all the people he had come to love, and he sensed they loved him too even if none of them was likely to say it where anyone else would hear. Trellium-D had been a curse, no doubt, but it had liberated what he hadn't known he had. Intuition, he had always called it; was it that, or an actual sense, or both?

“They're all crazy,” Bones sighed. “Crazier than Spock.”

“You should have seen the ones we were running from in the past. Now admit it, Bones, some of the rescues are fun. Kril'es Mak is a trip all in himself.”

“He's also the happiest Vulcan I've ever met, even if he does pick my brain until it feels as if my skull is inside out. He wants to know about everything, right now. Incidentally, Solkar is one hell of a medic.”

“I have to agree. The after action report of when their aid station was hit during that air raid, what he and Nick did...wow. They're crazy, but they're mostly a good crazy now.”

“And half of them are your family.” Bones poked at the remaining bourbon on the table.

“I can't wait to hit Mom with that information. Unless she knew and just didn't mention.” Kirk uncorked the bottle and poured them both a shot.

“Could have happened, as screwed up as that situation was. Whooooa, this is serious sippin' whiskey. Where'd Sarek lay hands on this?”

“Captain Rai's still. They were having an engineering show-me party the other day and he showed Scotty how he isolated the components of Scotch that give it the peat-aged flavor. I foresee much better _Enterprise_ hooch in our future.”

“Do the Romulans even have any sober crews?”

“Not many, fortunately. Lhairre explained that to me. Oh. One thing he didn't explain when he said the engineer he knew would help him? Mikel, on that big Vulcan cargo carrier _Shanai Road_ , which is okay now but wasn't before? That's his brother. The air tonight is full of relief. Huge, uncontrollable bunches of relief, from the ten thousand who understand and the six and a half billion who don't realize yet and are just glad to be safe.”

“Most of them,” Bones amended. Kirk raised an eyebrow. “Ah, quit that. Bad enough I know now you're related to Pointy. I ran into a not so happy situation.”

There were enough of those among the joy. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Really nice young couple, he's one of the groundskeepers here, she's a nurse, she was pregnant and lost a leg in the _Vengeance_ deal? They got together because their husband and wife were both inexplicably out of town and bit the dust in va'Pak? Um...they didn't get them back. The other two thought they'd use the evacuation as an excuse and run off together, and that didn't change. The runaways begged T'Pau to hide them and let their exes think they were gone. She did whatever Vulcan mind shit that takes, then told them to find themselves a nice colony, keep their mouths shut and stay out of trouble while the other two raise the kid.”

“Harsh,” Kirk said. He refilled his glass. “But they kinda earned it.”

“Happier thought: you figure out what Spock's Earth name is?”

“No, but John and Nyota keep calling him Junior, so I bet it's the same as what Sarek put on their marriage license. I can sorta hear a lot of what Spock thinks, but he closes that off. With a mental smirk, I may add. I don't think he minds me knowing, he's just harassing me.”

“How is he? You know, I can only guess. How is he?”

How was he going to answer that? Spock's depression had been the black dog in the room for so long, but now, how to explain the sense of balance, of wholeness? “He's brain-faded and bruised from the whole crazy two weeks, he got to go home-but-it-wasn't and freaky awful things happened there, he had to watch Vulcan come apart again, and the planet is still gone, but what he valued most is back with a bonus. Also, he doesn't need to think about making Vulcan babies. He could if he wanted, but it isn't a survival situation. He's not the First Half-Vulcan now, nor is he even Amanda's only child. It's a huge load off. With the new knowledge about the fake DNA and the numerous lies to keep it secret, a lot of people have a lot to answer for, but nobody's thinking about that right now.” That called for a belt of the bourbon. “Whew, this _is_ good, but it's strong.”

Bones seemed surprised at his empty glass. “Smooth as a baby's backside and at least a hundred proof. We should slow down, huh?”

“Yes, you should!” Kirk jumped at the impossible familiar voice. “You can't get plastered and join Starfleet this time and you've already joined the local navy.”

“Chris? How?” He goggled at Christopher Pike in his wheelchair and in the next breath was down on his knees, awkwardly trying to hug him. Tears and laughter got in each other's way. “If you're a bourbon hallucination I don't wanna know.”

“Easy, kid, you're half drunk but I'm here.” Chris must have had the same problem with his chair and the braces that kept him sitting upright in it, because he nearly pulled Kirk off his feet. “Lia explained it to me. I really don't remember being dead. I do recall getting blown up and Spock dragging me away even though he was wounded, and the hospital time royally sucked. From there, it's been pretty routine considering the craziness. Haven't I been going to work and what all? I mean, I believe I was off for two months and Spock had a bad week or so, but to everyone else, I was gone.”

He let his knees go out from under him and drop him back to the bench as he wiped his eyes. “I don't know how to explain this, but you being gone will fade. Spock's grandfather was dead until they did a point four second adjustment. Sarek still has a really bad mental image of his dad getting killed even when Skon is alive, well and right in front of him.”

“Point two five seconds on this adjustment,” Bones said. “I guess it was enough.”

Pike shook his head in wonder. “Putting things back where they should be, the Guardian said. She thanked me over and over. I had no idea what to say when she told me why. How do you thank a being for saving that much? She explained that what they really run on is joy.”

That made as much sense as anything. “Six and a half billion people with extremely powerful repressed emotions, and ten thousand losing it for sheer happiness...”

“Have the whole Guardian population high as kites. They're very efficient, so even a couple of happy returns would have helped them.”

“On the other hand,” Kirk gestured to his wheelchair. “Still?”

“Chi says not to give up on that, either. She did say it won't change when the rest of the repairs happen, just through regular medical means in a couple of years, couldn't be more precise because it might mess things up. I can look down an awfully long tunnel when there's light at the end.” Chris poked at Kirk's sleeve. “Ooh, talon and rolled-up grays. I see you're a tough guy now.”

“You know Lia very well, don't you?”

“Not as well as I'd have liked to when I was young and dumb, but Lhairre would have made mincemeat of me if I'd made the suggestion. He _probably_ wouldn't off you, being family and all.”

“You know.”

“Knew ever since the thing that didn't happen with the stuff Bones didn't use on you. That's right, to you I wouldn't have been around to go through the materials he took out of the archives. Khan was very, _very_ interested in all of the existing hybrids, hidden or not. I understand he had serious designs on Betty Tucker, but never got the chance to hurt her.”

That woman Nick had called out to--“Wait a minute. _Betty_ _Tucker_?”

“Chi says she should have been held in stasis for a cure instead of cremated right away, so there she is working at the district archives and waiting on grandchildren.” Chris poked at Kirk's ear and grinned. “The ears, Len, the ears! You did a good job and they actually look decent on him, but...”

“Soon as we get off the planet they're history,” Bones muttered. “Bad enough to know he's a covert hobgoblin without having him look like it.”

“On the other hand, maybe people would leave him alone in bar fights. Rolled up sleeves on his grays, butter-bar insignia, pointy ears, who's gonna throw a punch at that?”

“Admiral Roskov?”

Pike's smile had daggers in it. “We'll find out in the morning. Now, about that bourbon.”


	23. House Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possible trigger warning: You know what happened to Kirk and Sarek. 
> 
> The hardest jobs can be the most rewarding. Also, 2009 totally wasted Sarek's awesome hoverbike, and that shouldn't have been all blown up either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "They hear me" was, at one time, a Plains nation way of swearing to something, as in "the Holy Ones hear me."

He woke, not sure why, thinking time had passed and it was the middle of the night. He decided to take that as an unprovable article of faith and function accordingly. Listening to the dark, he was aware of a silent mental call. Spock? No. Sarek, but why? He flung on a robe and stuck his nose out into the hallway.

Sarek kept his voice down. “I require your help with two immediate tasks. One is pleasant, the other absolutely not. That mission requires our mutual, and quite unpleasant, experience.”

“Uff da. Do I have time to shower and shave?”

“You do. I will prepare the, ah, equipment.”

“Uniform or civilian?”

“Civilian clothing is best for this.” Sarek slipped out into the night.

Time enough to dispose of his beard and freshen up was a luxury compared with some of the emergencies that would get a captain out of bed. He opted for his own dark shirt and pants, but the desert boots had grown on him. When he crept out the front door past the guards' polite nods, Sarek handed him a motorcycle helmet. He donned it with a questioning look. “One of the retrieved is in difficulty.” The urgency was obvious even masked. “Kril'es Mak and his bondmate know him. He, too, was a slave at that brothel and is experiencing a flashback he cannot control. Davy was able to convince him not to stop his heart. If you are willing, we may be of help.”

He was about to say _What makes you think I can do anything?_ The part of him that escaped the long-ago colony, the scared fourteen-year-old, wanted to let someone else try it. The rest of him--

\--no, the _best_ of him, human or not--

\--said “Of course” not only because there was a man in trouble but because the man before him was going, knowing what he would face. Had he and Spock not done the same, any number of times, when the stakes could be death or the ruin of worlds, but--Sarek? This was their past, now conquered. _I stand ready_.

“I have repaired both Kril'es Mak's motorcycle and my own that I retrieved from Vulcan before the final fall. The logical way to deliver his is to ride it to Shanai City.”

“Perfectly logical,” he agreed. “Shanai Road may be busier than usual at this time of night.”

“It might be, so it is logical we do not use it. Great Slide Road will suffice.” The replica wasn't as steep as the one on Vulcan that ran (had run? Would run? Still did, in the other universe?) down an ancient landslide on top of a cooled lava bed, but it would certainly do to judge the capabilities of a tune-up. “His is wheeled and not gyrostabilized, mine is quite powerful. Do you have a preference?”

“No, I'm familiar with both types.”

Sarek handed him the ignition plate to his hoverbike and mounted Kril'es Mak's wheeled machine, taking off quietly. Kirk followed, feeling out the engine on the big copper-colored bike as they rose to the top of the steep empty road. Sarek paused at the top to wait for him, then nodded. The stabilization tempted him to let the throttle out all the way. Raw speed, adrenaline and night thundered in his veins. He flew past the wheeled bike as if it were standing still. Great Slide made a long arc to cross the main highway at Low Springs, then curved around Shanai City. Wind and sand in his face, night mist in his hair, he hated to slow down for the streets. He found the address and waited for Sarek to appear behind him. Kril'es Mak waited at the door of his bondmate's family's apartment building, baby on his hip. “Come in, he's right here.”

So was Davy the psychiatrist, built like his father John and therefore eminently qualified to discourage the shattered young man from fleeing. Given the younger man's slight build, even if he did make a break past Davy he would stop when he ran into Sarek. “Good, you brought reinforcements.”

“Now what are they going to do to me?” the young man whimpered. In spite of his fearful voice, his eyes flicked from one to another, calculating Kirk as the weak spot. There it was again, the reason Vulcans clung to logic; whatever had driven him off center had also left him dangerous. Mak's bondmate, the former police chief, caught Kirk's eye and nodded slightly, indicating she would have his back in spite of her crutches.

“No one is going to do anything to you that you do not approve,” Davy said, deliberately slack and relaxed. He had pulled his long hair back to look more Vulcan, even if nothing could make all two meters and a hundred and thirty kilos of him less scary. “Slavery is no longer allowed or even thought of here. These men are medics, but they have also shared some of your experiences.”

“Neither of them is taking me,” the rescued man growled. “No one will touch me so again.”

“I would not think of it.” Sarek sat beside Davy and also tried to look harmless, and Kirk followed his lead. “What happened to you happened to me. I was a Romulan prisoner.”

Kirk nodded. “It also happened to me. I was a child on a failed colony where people were starving. I was sexually abused by many people. You may know my mind and the truth of it.” He knew it was a shocking offer; he was unable to care. The man stared at him for a long moment and nodded.

“You must be telling the truth, but you are telling it out loud. Is this new world so?”

“It is becoming so,” Sarek said. “Even when I was younger, what happened to us was treated as a great shame. I no longer see any logic in feeling shame for the crime of another.”

“If I may,” said the police chief. “There would have been no life for either of us in our time. My clan would not have taken me back and Mak's was dubious about me at best. They hear me, two years before you found me I tried to hold the city against the autumn attack. I got my officers away and stayed at my post too long. The next I knew, I was in an interrogation room at the police station in Kir. Their idea of a fitting punishment was to give me to the use of other officers first, then they hauled me to Low Springs and threw me in a room with a man in his, ah, time. When he went away there was another and another, always. Some lived, some died, some they took away without saying. Was it so for you?” The man nodded tightly with downcast eyes. “You must understand what I have said to so many in the same situation: to refuse would have been death, to comply nearly was, and there was no means of escape until the night of the launch when everyone ran away. Even then, you were bound and your feet had been broken to keep you from running.”

Sarek did not wince outwardly, but Kirk sent what comfort he could. Their minds leaned like tent poles holding each other up in the desert with a haboob coming. Sarek reached for the man with his mind. “There is much physical pain. That can be corrected with continued treatment.”

“Why bother? No one can touch me. No one decent _would_ ,” the man said bitterly.

The strange anger, the inward turn, the heat that rippled from the man; Kirk realized. “There is medication that will delay what you are experiencing.”

“Delay will not help. No one would touch me voluntarily, and I will not abuse another.”

“You would not have asked for help if you intended such a thing. This is a condition all Vulcan men experience, one we have hidden for far too long.” Sarek did not take his eyes from the man. “Davy. Do you have a packet?”

“Never leave home without one,” he said almost lazily, and rummaged in his bag a good deal more aimlessly than was strictly necessary. “Ah, there it is. Directions are right there on it. Catch.” He tossed the packet softly underhand.

The man scrutinized every bit of the lettering and checked the seal; paranoia was the order of the day, and Kirk knew it was to be expected when the hormones broke out. “This would help?”

“I use it myself,” Davy said. “Always make sure I have a fresh one with me. I travel in space so much I'm not regular and there's no guarantee of being home when it hits. You read the directions. I'd put two of those white ones under my tongue and let them dissolve. Five minutes, give or take thirty seconds depending on your own body and all, you'll find yourself thinking a lot more clearly.”

The man read the label again, wavered for a moment, then slapped two of the pills into his mouth. Silence fell on the room, no one willing to irritate him further, no one willing to look away for long. The sublingual hormone blocker worked quickly in most cases; the first hint was the sweat no longer dripping from the man's face. His hands shook less, the wild light in his eyes diminished; after a few minutes, he began to talk. “I was an accountant. An _accountant_. My wife was the soldier in the family, but when they broke into the city...”

It was the story Kirk knew too well. Starved and beaten, abused in every other way, then the offer for the final breaking— _let us do this and you'll get an extra bit of bread; do this too, and I'll think about letting you have soup tonight._ Kirk checked the man's file: no children, wife killed in the first assault of the Autumn War two years before the Battle of Mount Seleya. “I was no longer anything I recognized,” he said. “I had a name once. Now I'd be ashamed to have anyone know it.”

“I was the same way,” the police chief said softly. “They told the men silly names. Fancy. Hot Body...” she drew a deep breath. Kirk watched her get her nerve up. “You two saw my records. You know who I am, don't you?” Both Kirk and Sarek nodded. “I am T'Senau Swana, and I was, in our time, chief of the Shanai City police. I have handled, in my years as a police officer and later a chief, hundreds of such cases. I did not anticipate having to tell myself what I told all of them: it wasn't my fault, there was no justice in the way we acted toward those to whom these things happened. In wartime, horror is a given and not all of it is death. Some of it has even longer consequences.”

“I was one of the men they threw in,” Mak offered. “At the time, I was barely conscious, but I still carry dim memories. She has, incredibly, forgiven me.”

“I would have even had you been capable of resisting,” Swana said. “You had refused to be with anyone even though your family tried to make you choose, so they took you there. I felt your kind heart and mind and did not want you to die. Any wrong was mine, because you were unable to answer when I made my offer. The simple act, with no abuse and no violence after so much of both for so long, was no problem at all. Your gratitude was my own rescue. Besides, I always enjoyed your books and really liked your public appearances.”

Mak cocked his head and looked up at her sweetly, exuding love and gratitude. “That much?”

“You, literally dumped into my lap, helpless and burning to death, is the only reason the rest of it was tolerable. You know what they used to say, no bond, no baby. My whole being volunteered. Being pregnant with Korsau saved me from a lot of the worst work afterward. I knew there was hope because you are a good man and would help us escape. As it happens, it wasn't how we thought it would be, but frankly, I prefer the way it turned out.”

“But you wanted him?” The man looked to Sarek. “No woman would be my mate.”

“My wife,” Sarek's wonder broke through; he was too strong an empath to contain it when the man needed to know. “She knew from the beginning and bonded with me in spite of it. She is nearly fully Human, and she endured much to be with me. If you find no mate among our own people, I would advise you to look wherever it is necessary to find the one who is for you.”

“I seek a woman,” the man admitted. “After what happened, I could not be with a man.”

“The registry can help you. All you need to do is offer your name and preference, then answer an interest survey. When we contemplated bringing you and the others forward, preliminary matches were made for just this eventuality. Some are no longer possible because of the rescue, but many widows among the loyalist modern Romulans would consider you as a mate.”

“They are similar to my own people,” he admitted. “But surely they would not, knowing.”

“Bear in mind,” Sarek weighed his words with the care he would have used on the debate floor, “those we call Romulans are the very people who left in those ships during the dust storm. What the Kiri did to you then, a part of the Romulan government still does to people now. Many loyalists and rescues understand in all too personal a way. Some forms of healing are best done together.”

The medication was working in a more obvious way, breaking the fever and paranoia to reveal the depth of the man's other physical agony. “If such a thing could happen,” he said. “Can such a thing happen?”

“Entirely so. We do not speak of _it_ for some reason, but we all know _it_ happens and know the need in which a man may find himself. There are also women who handle the need by financial arrangement, not because of force but of their own free will, because they enjoy the work. If that agrees with your own beliefs, that is an alternative.”

The man read the packet again. “This will delay _it_ for a month?”

Davy shrugged. “Ordinarily. If _it_ does come on in spite of the meds, _it_ tends to be very mild.”

“That would allow time, rather than arranging for someone who...I would prefer...the services of the registry. If there is a woman who knows, who perhaps has the same doubts, but who wishes...?”

Kirk looked at the three names offered. A few quick keystrokes with current parameters reduced the list to one. “A person living three blocks over expresses interest in marriage and is prepared for emergency needs, but is concerned about her ability to bond because of the trauma she experienced. She has consulted a healer who believes she will be able to do so.”

The police chief got up and looked over Kirk's shoulder with the easy authority of one used to investigating. “An excellent choice. She was a statistical analyst on a mapping ship, taken prisoner and hauled to the Neutral Zone, current age fifty-four, badly wounded in her emergency service during the Battle of New Vulcan, in transition to civilian work as...ha...an accountant, is near her own cycle, desires a family and has put her name on the roll for an active match.” Before Kirk could react, she pushed the button that would alert the woman. “No logic in waiting, is there?”

“No, rekkhai.”

The chief eyed him. “ _I_ should be rekkhai-ing _you_. You're a man who gets things done or I wouldn't be here, and I never did thank you properly.”

“Me? If you hadn't thrown me that ignition plate, none of us would have made it out of there.”

The man considered their conversation, mopped his hair and face and flexed his newly compliant fingers since they would unclench. “The pain need not be permanent, then?”

“Not at all,” Sarek assured him. “The initial repairs were intended as a beginning, not an end. Much more is possible. You haven't been contacted yet because of the numerous people being treated subsequent to the Great Rescue, but there was a tentative plan for your reconstructive surgery before we retrieved you. I believe at the moment your right ankle is the point of greatest concern. May I evaluate it? I will not touch unless it is necessary and you grant permission.”

The man extended the foot. “They hit it with a hammer.”

Sarek scanned his hands over it. “So they broke both of mine twice, and both hands as well.”

“They did...the other things...to you?” Sarek nodded. “But it is well with you now?”

“It has been very well with me.” He had begun at some distance, then moved his hands in as he sensed the fields around the nerves. “This scar tissue pinches the nerve. It is made worse by swelling. This we can treat tonight, right here. The other damage needs to be dealt with in more detail than was done simply to save your life, that your other symptoms will go away. Such was done for me.”

“And it worked?”

“We have three sons since then.” He stopped at one spot. “With my limited experience, I believe this to be a simple adjustment. I would have to touch here, and here. Is that acceptable?”

Yes, but no warred in the man's face. Davy yawned. “He's pretty good. I don't have the knack for broken bones, just broken minds. Yours is a little stirred up right now on account of what we don't talk about and what happened. We can talk about that anytime you want. Not a thing you said tonight I haven't heard from a couple thousand other people and they're all in decent shape otherwise too.”

“But I have gone mad,” the man said.

“No, you went through months of abuse nobody should have to put up with. After that, you were badly wounded in an extremely violent attack. You'd have died if you hadn't come forward in time. Now you're stuck for the rest of your life in a strange place with only a few people you know and your body is choosing now, because of the stress, to do what hormones do to every last one of us men. That's not a normal situation, so why do you expect to feel normal in it?”

“This is true.” The man looked to Sarek. “You may touch my ankle as you wish.”

Two hours later, in the fullest of the night, Davy had talked the much calmer and less desperate man into going to the local clinic for the night, getting his physical work and therapy started in the morning and meeting the accountant in training. As he walked out, the man turned back once. “I am S'Kerih Koval. I am no longer ashamed for you to know my name.”

They reminded Mak that his bike was back and Kirk delicately hinted he might like to be easy on the throttle until he saw how it handled. “That is a very good thing,” Mak beamed. “I am not at all averse to walking where I can, but some walks are a bit time-consuming, assuming I don't manage to slide into the swamp again.” He and his wife went back into their building, trailing relief and even a bit of hope for their friend behind them.

“That was bad,” Sarek said as he walked to the bike. “Kirk, again I am grateful for you.”

“Anytime.” He thought of it. “Kinsman.”

“So it is.” Sarek leaned on the bike, shaking and trying to pretend he wasn't. “When I touched him.” He didn't need to explain that. “Emotional transference is always a risk.”

“Ground. You know you need it.”

“Just so. I do not need to have an entire ship in disarray again.” He began to lay his hands on the ground, then kicked off his boots and lay full length to dig in.

Kirk sat on the sand beside Sarek and looked off across the night quiet of Shanai City. One of the newly self-relocated nightbirds went by above them; something in the neatly trimmed ground cover rustled, something else squeaked. The planetary shields were up again, so the wind was cool and barely stirred sand. The words of an ancient Christmas carol came to mind: silent night, holy night.

Jagged breaths settled softer and deeper. For all the world, it was Spock fighting himself back to center after some gruesome event, except Sarek was able to speak. “Oekon.” It was barely a whisper. “There will be so much to do. There will be consequences, yes, consequences. Oekon. I do not care. Amanda is back. James is with us. Lhairre is here. My sister is here. Ruven is here.”

“Yes.”

“Sybok,” his throat clamped on the name, “is no longer insane. The part of his brain that was so badly damaged is gone. Spock may not hate me.”

Sarek would have had to know better, but doubtless required a reminder. “I can guarantee he does not.”

“Spock did not understand why Sybok had to leave. I could not explain even when we melded. It was not only the offenses at Gol. On that last morning, Sybok had no idea he was unshielded. The splinter group refused to listen to any of the elders who had tried to teach them that. He was shouting at me as usual, but thinking of what he planned to do with Spock, out in the desert. He wished to...” he lifted a hand slightly and waved the details away. “Suffice, he was going to torture and kill his younger brother. It would not have been many days, perhaps that night. The voice in his head commanded it; the group approved and urged him on. He had begun to think of the voice as Hakeev, as his father, as a god to be appeased, the orders as holy; the group, no saner than he, venerated him as a visionary. What more could he sacrifice than his brother? Amanda tried to warn me, but I could not see it until that unguarded moment, then it was all too clear. So badly had things gone between us that Spock had no idea who to trust.”

“I have to commend Sybok for doing what he could, however belatedly. Brain surgery was a huge decision for him, but could no one suggest it sooner?”

“Because of past abuses, psychiatric surgery is as illegal on Vulcan as genetic modification is on Earth. It is not logical, but it is so. He had to have it done on one of the Border Romulan colonies where the radiologists are excellent and precise, the side effects minimal. If he could have had it done as a young man, assuming he would have given consent, how much might not have happened.”

“He is well now. He told Spock and me to, and I quote, be excellent to you.”

Sarek whispered into the sand, then repeated it with a little more force. “Forgiveness. I am not certain the idea existed on Vulcan. A thing wrong by the law must be punished by the law, and so a father found himself commanded to take his son into the desert, break his neck and leave the body. At his sentencing, my mother ordered me to do, in her exact and carefully chosen words, 'what you know is necessary.' That gave me a loophole to have Lia make a dangerous trip to us in stealth mode. We knocked him unconscious and she dropped him off on the Federation mental colony where he would be cared for.”

“That ceremony. Lia knows his mind is healed, but making that scratch across his throat?”

“Ceremonial execution to pay for his crimes and give him liberty to return. Her drawing blood was a legality, less important than the surrender and submission to the clan's authority.” Sarek closed his eyes and laid his head on the pale ground. Heavy traffic had left streaks of the Forge's red sand and the deep cinnamon dust of the lost Shanai City. His fingers traced over the last bits of Vulcan. “So much was lost. Not all can be regained. But we will manage. We _will_ manage now.”

“We will. Why would you imagine Spock would hate you?”

“When he stormed off to join Starfleet all those years ago, shouting into my face at the gate, I saw only Sybok's mad eyes in that very place and seeing what he wanted to do to me, to Spock, to anyone. I thought Spock was going down the same path and it was surely my fault. I was distant; Sybok was his older brother, his idol, already a cult hero among his faction. I wished aloud to have died so Spock would never have been born.”

It was an ancient curse, the worst one a forefather could throw at a descendant. “You were angry, disappointed...”

“No. Emotional. Except that emotions did not happen on Vulcan. Or to Vulcans.”

“Like hell they didn't,” Kirk said.

“We were dry bones, a parody of ourselves. No wonder those things happened. The splinter Jarok group that Sybok fell in with claimed to be looking for old hidden truths. Jarok's gentle katra was horrified. They were not seeking what he taught or his father set forth. They were looking for what you saw on the battlefield. We cannot go back to being that. Neither can we be what we had devolved into, a pale and hollow race fully deserving of extinction.”

“What you're suggesting is something entirely new.”

“The work it will require. I must be out of my mind. And yet, it must be. Second chances, so seldom given.” He uttered a soft fervent prayer of gratitude and ran his fingers through the sand for another moment, then pulled himself to his feet in a single flowing step. “I have appeared in public most often in my brown Syrannite robes. On some occasions the Council wished me to wear my Shanai Guards black in honor of T'Shaara. I was ashamed of her. We have met now. I will no longer be.”

For the first time in Kirk's experience, Sarek was standing at his full height unfettered by pain and weight within. Kirk looked up at him and the only words he had were “Damn, you're tall.”

“In the right company.” Sarek raised an eyebrow, picked up his helmet and glanced sidewise at him. “Do you want to see how fast that bike will go with a rider familiar with its capabilities?”

“I do. Can we outrun the past on it?”

“After tonight, I would rather stare straight into its eyes.”


	24. Breakfast with the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast, a triumphal trip and a real shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The actress who played Amanda in the 2009 movie is not Native American, but so many people thought so that it was intriguing. As for the Cherokee comment, I may resemble that remark...

When he woke, after four hours if time now meant anything, it appeared to be morning, so he treated it as such and availed himself of the buffet on the conference room counter. Lia reached past his nose with a distinct undercurrent of teasing. He turned around with his mug and pastry to see her ratty blue bathrobe firmly closed, which was a relief. “Don't worry, I actually have a nightshirt on under it this time,” she said with half a grin.

That had been an interesting awakening, in this very house; weak from his _Vengeance_ wounds and worn out from two weeks of unexpected, constant, desperate work, he had met Lia for the very first time in that kitchen while she was wearing her Admiral Hellfire makeup and the same robe barely closed on top. She had bet her grandfathers she would have to remind him where her eyes were. “What did you win?”

“John took my place to make a speech I dreaded and Nick made me a gown for non-military occasions since we were bereft of dressmakers.”

“I'm surprised you didn't end up with a dress made out of duct tape.”

“If Nick did that it would work. It's mechanical, he can handle it.” She waved her ever-present bodyguards to get their own food and leaned back with her tea. “Mother is composing her arguments while Sarek is alternately helping her and composing with Davy and the Navy Choir. Lhairre's getting things ready upstairs. Chris is giving Starfleet HQ a delicately edited heads up. We'll let them, especially Roskov, think it still takes sixteen hours to get to Earth.”

He ran the calculations in his head. “Four, if we don't rush?”

“Correct. Cloaked all the way, without undue hurry that could cause visible light distortions or bend time inadvertently, four. I can spare three big ships and their escorts cloaked. Our four small uncloaked Navy vessels showing skeleton crews will look like they're on normal, casual patrols and happen to be on the Earth end of their runs. If he's doing what I think he is, we may need them.”

The picture was suddenly all too clear. “Does Starfleet HQ realize _all_ of the people are back?”

Judging by the sparkle in her eyes, that was the right question. “Hardly anyone off-planet does.” She gave him the rundown. Arrivals at Kadur Memorial in Carbon Creek had been shrugged off as part of the publicly announced, if still controversial, temporal rescue. The loyal rescued Vulcans had been asked not to say anything, so in typical fashion, they hadn't. Others not so loyal had been quietly intercepted by Air Galactica during the escape and were in comfortable, media-free accomodations for the day. As for the still sparsely populated New Vulcan Embassy Row, Shras understood the problem, had ordered his embassy's silence and was busily arranging the Great Andorian Rescue as a distraction. The Earth ambassador would keep her mouth shut and the Tellarites' sudden “communications problems” prevented them from phoning home. Lia toasted him with her mug. “Davy's lyricist had to rewrite his anthem, but the first public performance will have to wait until after we spring the trap.”

The Confederation of Surak was many outcast colonies that had offered to band together with the Remnant in Vulcan's hour of need. He had heard a ublic performance or two of the new anthem before the Rescue. Yes, a couple of places needed changed. _And we will rise, a hundred thousand strong, till every soul on every world is free_... “I don't imagine he minds.”

“I do not.” Sarek reached past him to the coffee urn on the other side, barely casting a psychic shadow. His poison-damaged control had improved with even one day in Amanda's presence as he once more leaned on her strong agile mind. That did not stop him from looking down at the tray he carried and having to set it down for a moment because his hands shook too much and his eyes welled.

Lia noticed. “Yes, you get to fetch her breakfast again.”

He reverted to a piece of mobile statuary, gliding back toward his—no, their--bedroom. Though his back was turned, he said “I will never take it for granted. Ever.”

After the door closed behind him, Kirk agreed. “He won't.”

“I don't either. Lhairre would be here garnishing my tray perfectly had I not crept out of bed to let him sleep.” Lia looked down at her coffee mug. “Do you know why I loathe Klingons?”

It was such a jarring admission that he was speechless for a moment. “Uh, no.”

Vulcan fury, carefully controlled and channeled, brushed by. The warp core sprang to his mind: out of alignment, it blazed, killed and bent time; set straight, it drove starships. “They took Lhairre prisoner from his bird of prey. Sneak attack, without honor, he didn't have time to blow up the ship because the Tal Shiar gave him up. Couldn't kill him themselves without getting caught, so they handed him to that Klingon khrykah'pekh who no longer has a name to me. I had to go get him off the back of QoNoS before they beat him to death or froze him on Rura Penthe. While he slept that night, I counted his wounds and exacted one ship for each of them. I didn't even kill the crews as they wished. As far as I know or care, they're still farming the centuries-dead former Vulcan colony I dumped them on.”

“Oof. That'll do.” The humiliation of a Klingon forced to farm for survival did not escape him. He had heard one of the Loyalists refer to “Hellfire's mercy.”

“That got us our own task force, which was very useful in the long run.” Her tone was as level as if she were emotionless. “Two Tal Shiar generals were deposed and an entire district was covertly liberated because of the promotion party. That does not take away a single ache from his injuries in my heart. He claims not to remember. I can't forget. As if that weren't enough, thirty years later I nearly had to execute my daughter because of those bastards' scheming. Because of their Tal Shiar handlers, I admit, but the stupidity and conniving was their own. That's sufficient cause, isn't it?”

“No argument from me.” T'Maekh had told him that story. “I'm surprised QoNoS is still there.”

“The Organians forbade its destruction. There are enough decent warriors like Captain Klarr to leave it be, I suppose. One day, perhaps some like him will be in charge.” She gripped the mug so hard he expected it to crack. “You know we all have medals from there.”

“Lhairre showed us.” He had seen the small frames with the Romulan version of collar pips and medal bars. There were stars for wounds in honorable service. “There were a lot of green stars.”

“Of the rest, many were awarded by one Romulan functionary or another in the customary way, that is, as attempted bribes or in fear of retribution for corruption discovered. I will never wear those again. The ones from the Klingon incursion, however, go on my Navy uniform. They were honestly earned.” She set the mug down carefully. “I may earn a few more today.”

 

On one hand, no one could say the mission hadn't been a spectacular success, and talking to Chris Pike again would have been enough no matter what. He insisted on going along, as did Shras (“I have a chance to face off with a Klingon and that overheated green glob isn't going to show me up”) and Amanda (“he isn't going to admit it or let it show, but it would tear him to pieces to leave us right now”) carrying the happy bag of James. It felt like what it was, a triumphal procession.

On the other hand, there was a non-allied Klingon on Earth masquerading as a Federation admiral, and the Federation was not yet capable of detecting cloaked vessels. Lia's reluctance to discuss her ships' capabilities suddenly made a lot more sense. Section 31 was, had been, and likely always would be prone to rogue behavior; how deep and widespread this incident was would be the next problem. Given the public outcry even on Earth after the _Vengeance_ incident and the desertion of the besieged Remnant, if no one in the penthouse at HQ had seen fit to look into Roskov's behavior at the onset of the Battle of New Vulcan, odds were very high that no one wanted to do so.

The Klingons were known to be down forty-seven warbirds and many smaller ships from the _Narada's_ depredations. At least in theory, the Organian peace treaty would prevent them from attacking en masse. The Federation-allied Klingons had been handed a few older birds of prey that had come across with Lia's fleet. Those ships were staffed by former POWs who had neither love for the Empire that had abandoned them, nor pity for the Romulans who had imprisoned them with all that usually entailed. It was possible there were sleepers among them, but Klingon plots tended to be forthright and highly visible before long. Unless some undiscovered force had decided to wage war, that left one likely opponent and the only one liable to be sneaking.

“...most difficult task was to be there at his end.” Spock Prime had come to see them off and was lecturing Sarek in a rambling way. “The grandchildren had all seen him while he was able to speak as he wished, and my wife had bidden him farewell only the day before when she went ahead of me to set up our work on Romulus. Ambassador Picard and I were there to receive his katra. We took leave of him without a single argument in his last moments, which was almost a pity.” Prime looked confused, which was not a rare occurrence lately. “I thought I remembered differently, but it is indeed the case.”

“Perrin allowed you to be there?” Stories about Prime's stepmother made Cinderella's look kind. His Sarek, broken bond with Amanda and all, had seemed unable to realize his new wife was treating him well and the rest of the family quite badly.

“Perrin? Mother's aide? She went back to Earth after Mother's death. She was never fond of my wife and especially not of me, though she was rather enamored of Father. No, his last wife was a most agreeable woman he had known in his youth. Both were widowed. Their marriage was logical as well as good for them.” He stopped, with that puzzled look he often had. “I was certain...No matter.”

“ _Ambassador_ Picard? I thought he was a captain.”

“Not by that time. He and Father had known each other for so many years...Ah. Also odd. I once recalled my Sarek died at two hundred and four, not two hundred and fifty. At any rate, Sarek, may you live a life as long and pleasant as my father's, and have the peaceful end that was his.” He raised a shaky ta'al and departed.

“It seems my other self has also had some resolution from these strange days.” Sarek looked to his own Spock, proper in his grays. “Without you, sa'fu, none of this.”

“I had sufficient help. I believe it was worthwhile.”

Ru came up. “I'm going to take our regular run, so you're going to have to behave all on your own. No fighting, you two. Unless you beat up a Klingon, in which case, I'll wish I was with you.”

“Hey,” Captain Klaar growled, mock-choking Ru from behind without fear of retaliation. The malice involved was dubious at best as he looked to Sarek. “My ships will have your back. Ru will be beside me most of the way on his run's usual flightpath even though I'm cloaked.”

“Then he's in good hands.” The unexpected compliment made Klaar fairly preen his uniform as he strutted away. Sarek looked after him. “He is a good man.”

“We knew that when we met him. You hit him in the nose with a leg and he admired that.”

“Perhaps striking people with artificial limbs is a character-detecting exercise.” His face softened at the sight of Amanda. “That is another explanation for later.”

“I watched the vids of that already—Good Heavens, James, he's right here.” She handed over the bag. “Yes, Spock, you were just as bad, but I didn't have the luxury of a handoff.”

“I will endeavor to be less unappreciative henceforth.” Spock rubbed at the back of his neck. Solkar had drifted up. “Headache again, I see.” Spock shrugged. Bones, who had also joined them, began to root in his medkit. “One moment, if I may, Doctor. Let me investigate this a bit further.” He reached one of those great spidered hands over the back of Spock's neck, face blank as he took in data, then gave a soft smile. “Hm. Referred pain.”

Bones used his scanner. “You're right, there's nothing wrong with his head, neck or shoulders.”

“We're doing the same thing. My hands are genetically sensitive to electromagnetic fields, honed by extensive training. Hm. It's not you, Jim...Ah. Just so. May I, Doctor?”

“Sure.” He startled when John gave his neck a quick and very minor twist. “How?”

“Practice. I handle humans all the time at work. You've become so used to that being out of alignment that you ignore it, but it bothers Spock. I'll show Jim what to do and make sure he's doing it correctly, because necks can be problematic and you may occasionally tempt Spock to break yours. Those headaches of yours, Spock? It appears you're mentally teething.”

That made sense to him. “Oh. That may require study.”

“You might want to adjust your meditation to the more involved techniques. I had to show Ru all of that years ago or he'd have gone crazier than he is. Ah. We are confusing you, Jim. Your warrior adept is well on his way to breaking out in full empathy.”

“I still don't get the difference,” he admitted.

“A high adept, like me,” Amanda said, “can control her own mind decently well. An empath can only avoid overhearing everyone else by controlling his own mind. A warrior adept can control the minds that are bothering him. A warrior adept who is also an empath is...um...”

“Really useful?” Lia said brightly. “Especially since she's hardly ever mad at you?”

“Ooh. I don't think I wanted to realize that,” Kirk admitted.

“Come on, if we wanted you dead we've had dozens of chances. Ready, all?--Whoa!” She lunged to help a stumbling, sobbing Shras. Andorians were as wildly open about their emotions as Vulcans were closed, but even for them it was extraordinary to see the ambassador in that condition.

Sarek moved in to take his other arm. “Is Thelin well?”

“Oh...yes.” He waved his padd at Sarek. “Silka was just informing me of her progress.”

“Ah, then—Wait. _Silka_.”

Shras snuffled and nodded, barely squeezing out words. “When she died, you know how she--those tall platform shoes she loved so because she was small and delicate, we were coming home, she was still dressed for the ceremony, tripped on the steps and I tried to catch her just that fraction too late. It seems I no longer am. Was. Whatever.”

“Perhaps you would wish to stay behind.”

Shras shook his head, dashing at his streaming eyes with a sleeve. “Not a chance. There's time now.” He looked up at Sarek. “So. Let us go deal with an unusually stupid Klingon.”

The _Carbon Creek's_ captain T'Maekh met them at the transporter platform, looking even more like a smaller copy of Lia. “So, Jim, I hear you're our cousin. Pity. I had planned to fix you up with our sister. You'd have had the most extraordinary berserker babies. May I remind you all of radio silence during warp, and everyone needs to shield in the unlikely case of warrior adepts on that side?”

“Got it,” her mother replied. “Shall we all go off to the lounge out of the captain's way?”

“As the admiral wishes.” T'Maekh was smirking.

“At least _pretend_ to be terrified of me.” Lia fussed over a strand of hair that had come loose from her daughter's proper Vulcan style, straightened the collar of her robe and dusted off a couple of her pins. Kirk noticed the Medal of Valor and four green stars. “Next stop, no fun at all.”

“You underestimate yourself. Besides, I'm here and I'll be there.”

“Ko'fu'kam, I count on that.” Lia made an excuse to turn away, looked over Kirk's shoulder and whistled. “And I wasn't counting on _that_.”

Unmade beds were kempt by comparison with Nick and Kirk believed he had sensed grizzly bears in better moods. He was dressed, in a sense, wearing a monogrammed brown day robe thrown over an archaic Terran plaid flannel shirt and jeans. “Awright. Let's go get the sumbitch.”

Skon tried not to laugh. “Sa'mi, you seem to have lost your Golic.”

“I got no Golic and no Old Syrannite and nothing left but Pittsburghese and most of that is dirty. John says this is the worst of it and it sure as hell better be.”

“If you're having the reaction I do, and it looks as if you are, this is the very worst. About tonight you'll crash, sleep for most of a day and feel a lot better when you wake up,” Kirk offered.

“It would be hard to feel a lot worse without being dead.”

“Being dead doesn't hurt that much.”

“Jim's right. It doesn't.” John produced a thin Vulcan hairbrush from his sleeve and shoved Nick's hair into some kind of order. “Your fever's down. No reaction to the new antibiotic?”

“For once, no. Make a note of it because there's another one Jim will be able to use.”

“It's a pity Zora had to do her regular run so she would not be conspicuous by her absence from work,” John sighed as he tried to straighten Nick's clothing. “You could use the help. Did you get through what was left of your berating list today?”

“I did. There weren't that many new requests. I've chewed out most of the inept bureaucrats, sports commissioners and billing agents in the Federation as well as a few cheating spouses and a neighbor who kept walking around naked in front of the streetside windows when nobody wanted to see _that_ show. Gah. I saw the pictures. If he's advertising, nobody is buying.” He hovered over the first well-padded chair, gingerly landed, yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Aw, shit, I forgot to check. Where are the embassy aides' parents? I rounded them up and lost track of them. They did get on, right?”

T'Maekh tried to look properly authoritative and not laugh. “We put them in the conference room. They know they have to keep silence.”

“Which reminds me, Amanda has put together a summary of what they need to know about what has happened with their children since they were gone.” Sarek shortened the bag strap a bit so James lay closer to his heart. “Speaking of children, he seems excitable today.”

“He's picking up on all of us. His tank fluid is fresh and he has slightly stronger nutrient. It's more like taking care of a goldfish than a child. Having him inside would feel so much safer, even though it wasn't.” Amanda patted the tank anyway. “I remember waiting for his initial tests to come back, because he was a natural conception and no one knew what might happen. T'Rouf was relieved that he didn't have a single problem she could find. That's what made it so bitter when we lost him.”

“Would you have tried again had he lived before?” Spock asked softly.

She was allowed to pat his cheek. “Of course. We wanted an army, but I always thought we were supremely lucky to get you. Do I complain about how Ru got here, or that he did?”

“No, but...”

A marshmallow bounced off his head. Nick growled “Can the crap, kid, we're glad you're here.”

“Fa'sa, if you want to lie down our quarters are right around the corner.” Lia checked the bourbon supply. “Whenever you need it.”

“Yeah, gimme a glass. I got this far,” Nick groaned. “If Jim is right, tonight I'm going to crawl into bed in Carbon Creek, and 'crawl' is not even close to hyperbole, and not get up until this goes away. Of course, we could all be dead by then instead, which would suck.”

“Well.” Lia lifted her head, listening. Kirk caught the softly rising note of engines spooling up. No two ships seemed quite the same to him; he supposed it was his imagination. She caught his eye and shook her head. “I can tell one from another even over the comm. Part of that was intentional when they were designed, alike in most ways but different enough in sound and signature to let us tell which was which. When we were stalling before the last battle on New Vulcan, I knew they were on the way but not when they would arrive. Maekh keyed her comm and held it open as they dropped out of warp so I'd know she was there. Ah. This may be a little bumpy.”

The moment of transition into warp was always mildly unsettling, but T'Maekh's helmsman had as much restraint with the big engines as Sarek did with a motorcycle and there was a solid bump. Nick growled muffled curses. “Reminds me of hanging onto the fire truck.”

Lia half-smiled. “The fire truck? Hanging on?”

“Billy Mavar was assistant chief of our volunteer department. When they sold their old truck in 1961 our mine rescue team bought it. When we'd get a call or go to a contest, Billy drove. All our gear was in the side bays and only one guy fit inside with him. The rest sat on the back and hung on for dear life, like firefighters did. It's a stone wonder half of us weren't pitched out before we got to the main highway. Maggie said I'd be disappointed if he wasn't driving like a maniac.”

“Did you have to go to a lot of accidents?”

“Not where one guy got hurt and they got him right out. If they were calling us, it was a lot of people trapped. After we'd been stuck ourselves, Billy didn't like to wait around.”

“You know what it's like to be in that kind of a bad place,” she said.

“You do too, only with more people. After one life at stake, it's just a whole bunch and they all matter and you gotta do what you can and try not to cuss yourself for what you can't.”

Spock had been listening; Kirk felt him think. “Were you always successful?”

Was that a half-smile on Nick's lips? There had been a point to that story. Kirk realized there usually was. “No. Not even at getting the bodies back. You do what you can, not what you can't.” Spock nodded. “Hey. How come you all keep asking me about old Earth, anyhow?”

“Because we knew Vulcan,” Lia said. “We don't know the other quarter of ourselves. I lived on Earth as much as most traveling Vulcans, but all I knew was present-day city life.”

“Ah. Heritage. Yours too, so it does make sense.” He scratched his head. “Gotta talk to Chi when I get a chance, so you can see and be there instead of taking my word for it. It's why I brought personal pictures and vids back besides what I sent in reports; I didn't know who I'd ever be able to tell, there were no guarantees I could pass on my or Maggie's memories or our katras, and if it took a couple more generations to get the files out they wouldn't be as liable to be altered to suit what the High Command wanted. So much was lost in the world war. When I got back to Earth in 2063, six years later in my timeline and forty there, I barely knew the place. Too soon I had to leave again and didn't get back for a hundred years and even _then_ not for long. This last thirty-five years in Carbon Creek, if it's not the same it's good enough and it feels more like home than home did. The climate heated up while I lived there with Maggie. It rained a lot and hardly ever snowed until the war came, then it got really cold because of the dust and seemed to snow for decades. Now, with the controls, we could leave it warm all year, but no one votes for that. Snow isn't the problem it used to be, so we let it go just to remember, like the Rain Festival on Vulcan.”

Lia's son had stopped by for tea as his duty allowed. He folded his arms. “Other than tradition, is there any reason the Vulcan restoration cannot use climate control?”

“Not a reason in the world. I even asked the Guardians. Transition would be rough, but we can ask people to stay off for a year or two so there won't be anyone bothered or in the way.”

“So there was no logical reason for allowing it to become so much hotter and drier than it ever was historically, other than typical Vulcan masochism.”

“Correct as usual. Just curious,” John said. “What's the first thing you would change?”

Courig had obviously given it a great deal of thought. “The oceans. We could cool the climate enough with a small amount of orbital dust properly dispersed. I'm certain Seleya would help with that if we explained.”

“Wait a minute,” Kirk interjected. “Mount Seleya would help if you _explain_?”

John raised an eyebrow as if he'd forgotten to mention something obvious. “Of course. She is sentient, only alive on a very different scale from the rest of us. She became angry at all the bloodshed, and not incidentally the damage to her and the other Underliers, during the Reform Wars, so she's been trying to get rid of us ever since because she's not happy about the cold logic either. Her letting us live has required periodic negotiations. Perhaps she would find this a happy solution.”

“The ambassador business is trickier than I thought.--What about the water, Courig? Is there a source underground, or what?”

“No, most of the water on Vulcan really was blown off during the most dire nuclear wars. There's a slow-moving comet about four light years from the site we could tow in, and it's nearly all ice. If we move it down slowly, it should be almost enough to replace what was lost, more than has been on the planet for centuries. I also expect that water generated by impulse engines, now normally discarded in space, could be offloaded into the river system, gradually replacing the rest.”

Kirk smiled. “You haven't seen the oceans on Earth in person yet, have you?” Courig shook his head. “You have to see open water. It's your birthright too.”

“The tall ships on Earth are so different. The age of sail on Vulcan was so very long ago, and no one alive has seen a preserved ship in water deep enough for it to move. The rotary sails we used were unlike--” His comm chimed. He scowled, refilled his tea mug and excused himself.

“Which means,” Lia said, “we need to show him the harbor in Frisco.”

“You bet. We ought to find one of the tall ship cruises. I always took the water on Earth for granted,” Kirk admitted. “Too much was a problem when the controls went out. When we'd say it had been dry in Iowa, we'd mean it hadn't rained enough to get good growth on the crops. Even when the control messed up, I don't remember the river not running.”

“Give Courig a chance and he'll put the Khar River back,” Lhairre said. “I reminded him not everything can or should be as it was just after the Reform and before the first nuclear wars, but he will get a good reception from the Council and general public if he suggests the oceans. The river system would be a real asset even in a primarily desert climate. Yes, he figured that all out himself while he was standing night watches on the bridge of ships full of stir-crazy Vulcans just out of prison camps.”

“He does seem to be a brilliant man,” Spock ventured. Kirk felt relief all but oozing from his pores. _I'm not 'the smart one' any more._

_You coulda fooled me,_ he thought back.

“He has company.” Lia heard and met Spock's eyes with a trace of smile. “You are as you are. People owe you that. Be content in your ability, not ashamed of it.”

It was the kindest beat-down Kirk could imagine. Spock nodded politely. “Ha, rekkhai.”

“So you want to hear more stories?” Nick offered. “Why aren't you telling them, Amanda?”

She had returned, sans James. “Most of the parents are still not-nervous-but-they-are around me. James and Sarek are much more welcome. And what stories?”

“How you grew up. These people didn't know they had anything to do with Earth, and I wasn't there for your part of it after Bud died.”

“You do know no one gave me the slightest hint that you weren't from Pennsylvania?”

“Of course, hon, it wouldn't have been safe when they were young, and old habits die hard, so.”

“My grandmother, your granddaughter Dove was ordinarily very quiet. The only person she ever got mad at was her Cheyenne husband. He was a rodeo clown, and that line of work gave him too much opportunity to misbehave. One time he really went over the line, tore up a bar—with Davy's mother, by the way--and got tossed in jail. Granny Dove and my father went to get him out. I liked him a lot. He always called me Little Sun. When all the shouting was over he and I were sitting on the front porch. 'Little Sun,' he said, 'I'm Cheyenne and we're warriors, but even we need to learn to never, under any circumstances, piss off a Cherokee.' It doesn't seem like advice you should give a seven-year-old, but I passed it along and Sarek seems to have taken it to heart.”

“You're Native American, then?”

She shrugged. “Mostly. What isn't Cheyenne or Cherokee is Irish, except for that little Serbian part.” She grinned at Nick. “You're Serbian too, right?”

“But of course. Maggie had to explain I shouldn't use her name when we got married. Fifty years later I coulda been Nick Kadur and nobody'd have thought of it, but hoo boy, not in 1957.”

“Hm,” Silek said, then waved Amanda on. “Keep going, I need to think at Rai.”

“Kadur, K'turr, hm, I thought that last name was interesting when I first heard, and I was right. Krenath, too, which isn't very nice when you think about it. I was about six when we moved from Broken Bow to the very northwest corner of Iowa, where my dad had won a half-gone farm either by hustling pool or playing blackjack. We're not really sure which because he told both stories.”

“You can tell he was mine,” Nick sighed happily. “He could card-count with the best.”

“Either way, he'd won it from my mother's cousin, more or less had to because cousin Mick would have lost it to someone outside the family. The farm was a whole section nobody had used since the wars. Wild bison, a herd of mustangs and other stray horses had set up shop in the corner up against the Dakota border. It was a kid's corner of Heaven. The first thing Dad did was plant all the bare parts full of fruit trees and set up a grape arbor behind the old farmhouse. We weren't on the nation's land, but that didn't matter; way back, it would have been days of riding or hours of driving to get to the Sun Dance, but when you can fly a shuttle it's no time. That first year, when I had just turned seven and Grandpa had been in his trouble, we went to that giant pow-wow and all the cool kids were riding. I told Dad I needed a pony. He laughed and handed me a rope. 'Go get one yourself,' he said, 'you're old enough.' It hasn't escaped me that Vulcan kids do the kahs-wan at about that age.”

“So tell them what you got.” Nick obviously knew the story and was tickled by it.

“Nothing, right away. I went out to watch the horses and tried calling them over, but they'd been too long without seeing people. Curious, but not enough to come within rope range. There were a couple of really old apple trees, and for about a month I'd take lunch and books and climb up and read while the herd came around to see if anything was ripe enough yet. A couple of likely candidates would get closer than the rest. I realized I could hear them thinking, more pictures than words. Girl tree want apples afraid. So I thought back: girl tree no hurt, and I thought about sitting a horse the way you do. They looked confused at first, and it took a few more days, but the little chestnut filly walked over one day and gave me the oddest look. I thought house-food-with-me? She followed me to the house.”

Solkar nodded appreciatively. “And did you pay off?”

“Of course! The apples weren't ready, so she got apple jelly on toast. After about two more weeks of that, she decided I could put things on her back, and by November she would let me sit there. Getting her the idea of 'take me over that way, would you?' took longer, but by the next spring, we were pretty good at it and I rode her to school most days like the bigger kids did their horses.” She described years of riding the mare across the broken upland of the farm, convincing her to go on the shuttle to the pow-wow, meeting the rest of the family in the sanctuary that had protected them all during the wars as it had kept them prisoner centuries before. “When I went to college, I explained and she went willingly to live with my cousin Buzz. She understood horse too, so they got along very well for a lot of years and Brandy's descendants still live at her place. That was my biggest regret about Vulcan. Horses didn't do well there at all, not even Arabs, and Sybok loved them so. I always wondered whether it would have helped him to ride more and think less.”

“They used to say 'the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man,'” Kirk sighed. “Ernie was such a good horse. Frank sold him the minute Mom was in space.”

“To my cousin at the pow-wow that year. Of course Frank wouldn't have told you where, and we didn't know you wanted him. Ernie's getting older, but Buzz still rides him. You ought to go visit.”

Yes, and there would be a chance, wouldn't there? If, that was, everybody wasn't dead later in the day. “How far apart were you and my parents living, back then?”

“Eh, a hundred and fifty miles? We had lost track of Lena. No matter. Things come together when they should.” Amanda smiled. “My humanside family had a very Vulcan take on the sentience of the universe. As Grandpa said, 'assume anything can hear you unless you're absolutely sure it's dead and even then don't lay odds on it.'”

“Heh. That really does sound--” Lia reacted to her padd buzzing. He heard her quiet, clipped “At once” as she moved out at her customary not-quite-lope. A moment later the engines spooled down out of warp, nowhere near Earth. Lhairre asked a quiet question to his padd and nodded.

In a few minutes, a sailor appeared at the wardroom door. “Osu Mestral, Commander Kirk, the admiral requests you go to the hangar deck.” Spock shot Kirk a questioning look and he shrugged.

He and Nick followed the sailor through the twisted corridors. The sailor moved as if he could have run through them with her eyes shut, but anyone unfamiliar would have ended up in the ship's laundry. Lia was at the hangar's crew door. “Fa'sa, you should go in first.”

Nick gave her a grumpily raised eyebrow, but went. The door closed behind him, and in seconds Kirk thought he heard a woman scream. There was a distant babble of Standard and Golic, then Nick near the door. “I'll—how's this damn thing open? Ha. Get in here, Jim.”

“Jimmy!” He found himself in the arms of his grandmother.


	25. Time After Time (Shift)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grandma Kirk got her attitude from somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short ne because the next would have been unwieldy otherwise (and may still be.) It gets even sillier, I promise.

Time After Time (Shift)

 

He was afraid that if he hugged Lena back as hard as she was clinging to him, he would break her too prominent bones. She was ribs and elbows, a jabbing chin, a cheekbone that tried to embed itself in his neck. A fragile man in the same condition, upright only by holding onto Nick, peered over her shoulder. “Jimmy? Oh, my God. It really is you. You really are here.”

He knew he was staring, but the cause, as all his Vulcans would say, had to be sufficient. “Grandpa? I mean, yes, but...?”

“All we could do was tell you to run the other way, hope they'd follow us and we could do something, but all we could do was hide.” Grandpa Ty reached over Grandma Lena, and Kirk gathered him in too. “The stasis room, we knew they'd assume it was empty, hadn't people looked in there five hundred times for the last scrap, if the door was closed no big deal it had probably locked on its own again, and we couldn't find you, so we—damn me for being a coward, if we had stood up to him--”

“You had nothing to stand up with and would have died, the way we thought you all did. No shame from me. But why are you both so young?”

Lena lifted her head from his shoulder and smiled damply. “Dammit, Jimmy, I'm a doctor, not an electrician. I got the adjustment off again. Didn't learn a thing about it from the first time.”

“Third time she's been a kid.” Nick gave an exaggerated sigh. “On our first time in the boxes, she did the last adjustments and cranked down too much. I de-aged in Vulcan time, she de-aged more like a human, so I came out about thirty instead of fifty and she went in there sixty-three and came out biologically seventeen. She's about your mom's age this time instead of...whatever the hell she could be otherwise, I lose track. She's here, that's what matters. You too, Ty, you know that.”

That got a very familiar grin. “You still approve, sa'mi?”

“You know it, you little...They brought sixteen more out with them, Jim. Hey, Lena, we made a combat medic out of him, they tell you?”

“Yes! I'm so proud of you, Jimmy. To get your people out of there, that was...and then you...and _then_ you...They told us a lot on the way in. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. A _starship_ of your own already! As for the medical advances in these last eleven years...” she shook her head, still smiling. “It's going to take a lot of study, but I hear I'm not alone there, either, and what seems to have come over from the Romulan Empire may be amazing.”

“Some of their research methods are unethical in the extreme,” Rana agreed as she slipped through the door, “but knowledge, however acquired, must not be wasted.”

Lena struggled herself back to some semblance of calm and made the ta'al. Rana hugged her. Nick looked as if he had been hit with a cattle prod. “Well, there's something I never imagined.”

Lenna snuffled happily and looked Rana up and down. “I don't have to pretend we're half-sisters any more, do I? It's a good thing Daddy set the controls on _your_ stasis box.”

“Had you done it I might have come back as a zygote. Time has agreed with you.”

“Ha! Is Skon still--?”

Skon poked his head in the door. “Alive? I understand that's been a problem, but in all honesty I do not recall being dead. I don't seem to have been wounded badly, judging by the scar.”

“They explained that while we were on the way in, too. You look wonderful. I see the two of you have been healthy and busy.” Lena held a hand over the baby. “Oh, she's a girl! Imminent?”

“Saturday morning. I would have waited another week, but Arre does not compromise.”

“Grace is a lovely name in any language. Wait, Saturday? You're on the way to Earth.”

“Indeed. There is now an excellent Vulcan hospital at Carbon Creek. This one will know that part of her heritage from the beginning, and by law, jus soli, she will be a citizen of Earth as well as the Confederation of Surak. Things will change. I will change them as much as I can.”

Both women were talking a mile a minute as more relatives came in, and Kirk felt momentarily ignored until it dawned on him that Grandma and Grandpa weren't his alone. He looked around; other human faces in the background were making calls to incredulous relatives, staring at him in disbelief, or weeping at new family pictures on padds. “You look a little rough too, boy.” Ty looked him up and down. “I hear you and your cousins have been having some fun.”

“You could say that. Or you could say we've been running around the galaxy like chickens with our heads cut off.”

“You're George's boy. How the hell could you _not_ get into trouble?”

He started to laugh. “Now I get it! You named him for Mestral.”

“But George Nicholas instead of Nicholas George, yeah. I'm glad they didn't name you after me. Tiberio would have been a heck of a note.”

“Well, Tiberius _is_ my middle—Tiberio?”

Lena overheard and waved a hand. “His mom and dad changed his last name to hers so they'd seem more Terra Prime-ish during that trouble. I love my Tiberio Delvecchio Kirk.”

“I know it's a shock, kid, but you're not Scots-Irish on that side, you're Italian.” Nick looked off, dreamy-eyed. “I have his grandmother's marinara recipe. That woman was an angel, I tell you.”

“Daddy, they said you'd been hurt--”

“I was, sweetheart, but I'm getting better now.”

“He was shot in the hip with a projectile weapon and is still having a bad reaction to dyazine,” Rana cut him off.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Oh, crap, nobody would have known not to give it to him with that B27 gene variant. When I left it was the new best thing ever because it works on virtually all species and now the two percent failure rate is all over the literature. Let me guess, Jimmy...”

“Yeah. Only by this point I was actually slugging people. His control is awesome.”

“You always had so much trouble with your allergies and everyone was afraid to tell you why, even years after it could have mattered. It's n his father's side. What we ought to do is take his maternal DNA line and give you a stem cell--”

“Already did that with his. It's working great for however long.”

“It should keep. If it doesn't, we can boost it so you won't be in danger every time you walk past a peanut butter sandwich. Oh, Junior!”

Spock had appeared. “Aunt Lena, it is good to see you again.” Kirk heard Spock's unspoken _are you all right?_ , so he sent back the warmth that seemed to have suffused his entire being. Lena managed not to hug Spock physically, though her mind did. “Other than the expected damage from the colony, Aunt Lena, it appears stasis agrees with you.”

“Now to learn how to adjust it properly! If only the unit had been big enough. It was only meant for a few tons of grain. We didn't get everyone out, or even most, but eighteen is more than none.”

“Indeed. Also, with what the Guardians seem to say about this timeline, a great deal is possible now that may not have been before. It will require much more investigation.”

“Speaking of which...” Kirk realized the other implication. “The stasis control. That's not really a device for keeping food fresh by keeping bacteria at bay.”

“It's a time machine, sorta,” Nick shrugged. “Stasis if properly adjusted, set forward you get quick aging for cheese and bean curd, set back you get minor repairs for things that wore out before they were supposed to or couldn't be left where they were, like Lena here. You didn't clue in?”

“I never looked at the diagrams. Only forward travel?”

“Not a great idea to go back. For that, you use a slingshot or the portals, unless there's a stable wormhole. Years ago when we first met the Guardians I did get to go back on my own line and throw a pillow in front of John when Terra Prime shot down the _T'Plana-Hath_. He still got bashed around and it still took a hundred years for all the fixes, but he didn't get killed. He's still dead in some timelines where I didn't clue in and in a couple he's just Solkar and not John. Sometimes he and Skon are named something else or are both dead. I don't like those. Also, some-other-times I never went into stasis and am dead. Once, messily.”

“Do we want to know?” Kirk asked.

“Roof fall back in the mine. I never got out, neither did Billy or the other guys, the whole place blew up and took out the buildings around the pit mouth. At least Maggie got my life insurance on that one so it wasn't a total waste. There was no Velcro in that one and you don't want to know what was left after the nuclear war in the fall of 1962. That timeline really sucked.”

Lena put a hand over her mouth and cleared her throat. “I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm trying not to laugh at you, but you are _so_ stoned.”

“I know, believe me. So does half the galaxy. I've straightened out a lot more than time this week. They made me quit calling people after we went quiet. Should I start again?”

Rana gently detached the phone from his fingers. “O'samekh, I think not. Besides, we're on our way again, are we not?” The engines had indeed gone back up to warp.

“They told me I couldn't go back and get Maggie.” His voice was shaking. Kirk knew that part of the dyazide reaction, too. “I can do a lot, but I can't do that one thing, and bring her forward, and she would be young as long as I am, and...they say it would change too much. She's here--” he touched his chest just above his heart, “but I can't have her here with skin on. They said no and she does too.”

“She wants you to be happy. She told you that,” Lena scolded. “Is there...?”

“There is,” Rana interrupted. “K'turr, but an excellent pilot, a most agreeable woman, precisely the kind of match we would have made for him. You'll meet her soon.”

“Her name's Zora Golich. We're Federation-married since a week after va'Pak. The other way will be real soon. She's not Maggie, but I couldn't do much better for a fourth wife. Four wives. Hoo. I really am going to crash after we get Roskov dealt with.”

A long arm snaked gently through the crowd and delivered a discreet and delicate neck pinch. Nick didn't have time to hit the floor before John scooped him up in one arm. “Even with the stop we should be there in three hours and two minutes, give or take ten seconds. He would not be pleased if I let him sleep through the upcoming excitement, but he really does need some rest before that.”

“I agree.” Lena scowled at her tricorder. “He is _exhausted_. I mean, dangerously so. Has he even slept this week? What's with the nasty infection?”

“Old bacilli, no longer familiar to our immune systems, combined with a fragment of debris left in the wound and several bone chips near the nerve that made it more irritated. We cleaned those out last night and it is healing now.”

“Yes. If it weren't I don't know what I'd do for him.”

“I know what I am going to do: throw him into Lhairre and Lia's bed and run out the door in case he stirs. He was rather difficult to deal with last night. I may take to a bed myself in the meantime, but it needs to be out of shoe-throwing range.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Shoe throwing.”

Lena smiled. “Daddy is _very_ good at hitting targets with thrown objects. A side effect of watching so much baseball.” She took Kirk's face in her hot, bone-dry hands again, tilting her head back and forth to look at his ears. “These look like they belong. I was a little creeped out. Okay, more than a little. Jimmy...Jim, I suppose, you're all grown up...I'm so sorry.”

“I kept telling...your dad, jeez, what a thought, I didn't know...I kept telling _him_ that. I got out, but getting out without you just seemed wrong. I should have done something, but what?”

“You were a kid. What were you supposed to do?”

“That's almost word for word what he said to me.” He gathered himself. “I've had time to think about it all. It did drive me nuts, but not only that, not only Kodos, a lot of stuff.”

“You mean that rat your mother married? He can rot in jail. The back side of Mars colony is a perfectly good place for those who should never be around decent people.” The jagged edges of her anger poked him. She seemed to realize. “You can feel that, can't you?”

“It's a long story, and it was a _lot_ of Trellium-D.”

“So they said. I notice it turned Skon into an even bigger marshmallow.”

“Did not,” Skon said with the hint of a smirk and more than the hint of a giggle. “Magdalena, I will have you know Silek and I arrested a terrorist. By ourselves.”

“It was remarkable.” Rana was barely maintaining. “And I remarked on it. I have the vid.”

“This I have to see, and there's a lot I have to hear.” Lena looked around, still quivering. “Wait, this is Lia's flagship. I bet there's mint tea and carafruit rolls around, aren't there?”

 

He wasn't sure his grandmother believed the stories the rest of the family told about him, except for Sarek's observation that “Jim's driving is marginally less interesting than mine.” He had almost talked himself hoarse and had nearly forgotten the matter at hand when Courig presented himself.

“Khart'lan, Commander, the admiral requests your presence on the observation deck.”

It was hard to remember he outranked Courig, who was close to his age. What was he supposed to say? “Mnekha,” Spock said, rescuing him from an awkward grope for the words. The “awkward grope” thought phrase went across to Spock quite clearly and resulted in a dirty thought back he wouldn't have imagined out of his first officer, cousin and partner in numerous crimes. Nyota was busy in the communications lab on the big ship and barely had time to get a mental snort in edgewise. She was in Spock's mind like background music, like Amanda's shadow in Sarek's. Whether or not any wedding ever happened, a welding already had and wasn't likely to let go from Spock's end.

“What do you think we need to see?” he asked as they fell into step.

“We should be on final approach, and doubtless Aunt Lia believes it to be interesting.” The observation deck doors opened. Lia had her back to them, leaning on the railing. “Fascinating.”

Spock halted, hands properly at his back. “Just so. As I believe Mother would say, 'Holy shit.'”

 


	26. Pick-Up Sticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She knows what she's doing, honest.

Near-Earth space glimmered with the running lights of regular traffic. Just beyond the flight lanes, Kirk's eyes picked out ghostly shimmers he knew as Klingon and Romulan cloaking. Lia touched a button and the whole viewscreen lit with identifiers of invisible birds of prey and warbirds, all menacing Earth against an apparent handful of starships. “He brought the whole damned fleet.”

“Just the Third,” Lia dismissed him. “They look good, but that's as much an illusion as our cloaking. Those are the forty old ships we _let_ Misery have, so it took him a few months to get here. He would face opposition within the Empire for deserting his post, except the Second has no admiral while its hands are full of hostile Klingons, and the First is officially forbidden to go more than four light-years from Romulus so they don't wander off chasing Klingons and leave it unprotected, which happened twice while I was over there.”

“I...see. That's, uh, remarkable.”

“Isn't it though?” Her smugness alarmed him for half a second.

“Ahhh. You have a plan for him, don't you?”

“Mm-hmm.” That wasn't good either. Lia's muted expression still suggested a very bad surprise. “In the prime timeline, the Romulan Empire did not agree to peace negotiations until Spock was-will-be quite old, and unification came too late. Their Misery was not intellectually gifted, but his marginal competence prevented an easy solution. This Misery is, as Amanda says, dumb as a box of rocks, alleviating that problem. He was once chased down the main street in the capital by an officer who was not only very drunk but also on fire at the time.”

“Really. That sounds like something I would do.”

“Doubtless you would, kinsman, and you're not even S'chnT'gai crazy. Interviews for promotion involve a great deal of drinking, and Misery had indulged to the point of calling me an incompetent liar about an aspect of transporter technology. Had he known my real name, he would have recognized it as my work. He, ah, followed that with an accusation of cowardice.”

“In that case I _definitely_ would have gone after him. How'd you catch fire?”

Lhairre smirked. “My fault she was aflame., but not in the usual sense I was trying to create a distraction. I knocked over a candle, which set the tablecloth alight. The sugar in the ale began to burn, the bartender made to throw the tablecloth outside and unfortunately for my diversion the mess spilled onto her fireproof but absorbent pants in a remarkable display of smoke and flame while she was charging. She was both so intent on grabbing Misery and so hammered that she tripped over the curb and he escaped on foot down Bloodwing Street screaming like a child in diapers. Ergo, Misery is still alive and here, planning his attack, which is too bad for him.”

Spock cocked his head and nodded slightly. “You have his codes, don't you?”

That canary must have been mighty tasty. “He's nowhere near as crafty as Hakeev. In our experience, Romulan commanders come in three types: ruthless and brilliant; competent but hidebound by terror at what their superiors will do to them if they foul up—that type is the vast majority--or dumb and willing to prostitute themselves for a soft job. Misery is most definitely of the latter class, so careless he likely wrote his codes on a scrap left on his desk. Our person acquired them, and of course we sent them to the cryptographic expert. Father was appalled because they amount to 'one-two-three,' 'first watch launch code' and 'self-destruct.' The carelessness offended him on a professional level.”

Kirk kept his voice from fading to a squeak. “I bet it would!”

“Also, not all of our operatives came back with us. The bravest and best are still there, most in command of those ships you see. We have attempted to plan a clean hands operation, to avoid bloodshed. If it doesn't work, there will be a mess, but the Federation should be relatively undamaged. If it does work, you won't have to be an old man to visit Romulus.”

“Who managed the code theft, or can you say?”

Lia half-turned. “Not yet. Sarek may slug me when he finds out. Our contact assures us Misery is so confident and plastered at this very moment that he can't get out of his chair.” She tapped her comm. “Has the operative arrived yet?”

“Ae'i, Admiral, he is on his way to you.”

“Excellent.”

Spock got the faintly dark look Kirk knew as his brain devoting its entire power to a problem. He threw off almost no shadow at those times and it was a relief to feel the edge of his presence return. “Admiral, may I speak freely?” She gave the little _Of course_ gesture. “If there is no further problem with Romulus, and no difficulty in building the _Jellyfish_ when the time comes...”

“It doesn't won't will not have hasn't happened. Current information is the Hobus supernova wasn't won't be a natural event and has been will be prevented. This timeline which looked so disastrously broken is, in actuality, the means to the healing of the other. In this timeline knowledge of the assault exists. Logically, the circumstances cannot repeat. This timeline is accelerated. Last night a crucial breakpoint that would have caused Hobus was removed and the guilty party...ah...was also removed, by his own panic when he was discovered, which is all I can say. That, in turn, led to the new praetor's discovery of the government in exile Misery planned to set up in Kir Haran.”

“Ah. The problem becomes clearer,” Spock intoned.

“Indeed. He was to take his place after the admiral of the Second Fleet caused the Hobus disaster--scheduled for next week, by the way, a century early; its failure caused great consternation and numerous wounds to the responsible parties. The Second Fleet is in its usual disarray after an admiral departs abruptly, so there is little defense on the Empire's side of the Klingon border, but the Organians assure Sarek they are watching that situation as well as this one. I did have to promise them not to take undue vengeance in the wake of the collapse, and they made certain I understood the meaning of 'undue' before they gave their approval. They, in turn, are assisting the Guardians with untangling the timelines in order to bring about the best possible restoration. It appears T'Khasi will not return in livable form for at least a decade, which may not be a bad thing considering the effect her absence currently has on the refugees.”

Such hope, but the idea of losing what he had learned...“Will any of this stay?”

“What has happened since the _Kelvin_ is already so divergent that the timelines will not merge; they will simply heal, branched as they are. I wish it could happen in Prime's lifetime, but that poor battered soul may only know that it will indeed take place and his honor is already restored.”

“He came back from the future, so he is aging more quickly.”

Lhairre nodded gravely. “Greatly accelerated. He had lived a long life by the time he was imprisoned, and that and his hard lonely life on Delta Vega did him no favors.”

“The altered and more positive memories he now shares so often are not the delusions of an old man. The Guardians assure me they are real, the result of the healing of damage done by malicious time travelers who have, at least for the moment, been managed.” She perked up at a small twinkling star crossing their path, identified as _Shaishonna._ “Ru and his extremely numerous passengers are conspicuously inbound, purportedly to Air Galactica's dock over Pittsburgh. He won't have to be as terribly useful as he has been so often. The regular run will make them think we have no idea.”

“Don't the Romulans know you're here? I mean, their cloaking devices...”

“The ones aboard _these_ ships are taken from the plans of the _Narada_. Nothing we had before I left would detect them. For that matter, neither will the Federation's equipment. After all, the treaty says the Feds won't develop cloaking devices.”

“But these...” Kirk slapped his forehead. “Damn. That was brilliant.”

“Maekh's idea, not mine. The Federation didn't develop anything. The Sundered did. It's their fault they couldn't keep it. Also, technically this is not a Federation vessel. It is under the orders of the Vulcan High Command, which until now has been a pitiful, largely ignored shadow of its old Romulan-allied self and does not appear on the organizational table of the Confederation of Surak. I should mention that any necessary _Jellyfish_ in this time will benefit from these advanced propulsion systems and will reach any needed destination three times as fast. That would have been more than sufficient.”

“Peace in our time has always been an illusion,” Kirk sighed.

“When you were a child, did you play a game where you dropped a number of twigs so they fell entangled at random, then tried to pick up only those you wanted without disturbing the rest?”

“Pick-up sticks, we called it, yes.”

“That's what we're doing on a cosmic scale. On Vulcan and most Romulan worlds, it's called 'woodpile.' Both players hold a fistful of sticks in different colors, bump knuckles to get the bundles close, count to three and drop. There are numerous strategies to picking up one's own pieces, ranging from random destruction—the speed run where you try to grab yours before theirs tumble entirely to the ground, knowing you won't get all of yours--to cooperation, where you each decide to give up a few in order to save many. As you might guess, the former is a preferred Romulan strategy, the latter the preferred Vulcan. No matter what, we've dropped the sticks and made our woodpile. The only way to avoid dropping all of them is to decide they're really the same and cooperate to untangle them as gently as possible.”

The vision of sticks in two shades of green popped into his head, laced through with some red ones. “And every stick a world.”

“There will be wars, and rumors of wars. We will explore, and many new worlds' ideas will disagree with ours. Instant empires will pop up, the Cardassians will poke at us, the Dominion and Borg will always be a problem. The Klingon-Romulan-Federation heart, however, need not be. We will have more than a fighting chance; we will have a chance to argue instead of fighting, and no one argues better than my little brother. They will listen to him because they knew he stood the worst the Tal Shiar could throw, unbroken and fearless of death.” She drew a long soft breath. “Six decades, Jim. We were barely older than you when this started. Today, perhaps, it...not ends; it _begins_.”

Lhairre took up the spot beside her where he belonged. “All ready, Admiral.”

“Excellent. Now we wait for him to do something stupid.”

Lhairre grunted. “That shouldn't take long.”

“Somebody call me? I heard a remark about being stupid.” Sybok poked his head around the corner. He was big-eyed and shaking.

“Get in here, boy. You've paid that old debt in full now.”

Sybok edged around the door and crept up to them. “There are still the lives at Gol.”

“Not after the last temporal adjustment. You were battered to the ground and sent into exile without the death sentence. Trust me, I remember what didn't happen until recently.”

Sybok's legs gave out and he slithered onto the sill below the viewport. “Everything.”

“Not yet, but you went a long way toward getting it all.”

“He wrote his damn codes on a scrap of paper when they came in and left it on the wardroom table where he'd been drinking. I don't think he knows they're gone yet and he hasn't missed me. It's surprising no one saw me transport...” he shook his head. “Ah. Yeah. I had help there too, hm?”

“It may not hold, but if they haven't noticed by now it's about not to matter.”

Transmissions began to crackle between Earth and the hidden fleet. Nyota intercepted them and brought them up on the local feed. A Klingon admiral, exceptionally full of himself, was menacing the Federation's headquarters as delegates rushed to the main meeting room.

“Why do they always do that?” Pike complained. “Did they learn zip diddly and squat from when we all got blown up after London?”

“You'd never catch the whole Romulan senate in one place. They call in when big stuff happens.” Lia had resumed pacing. She was able to sit for hours in the witness chair on public display, but trying to stand still on her own flagship was more than she could manage. Kirk could feel her urge to go to the bridge as it warred with staying out of her daughter's way and authority as captain. “It prevents a mass takeout, and none of them get along well enough to be in the same room without stabbing and punching. Even the covert Unionists get grouchy when more than a handful are together.”

“How many Unionists are there?”

“Nobody is sure, including us. After the last coup it may be more than half. The instability Jisit reports is so profound that even before our earlier exploits, we estimated five years before internal collapse without intervention, less if we could give it a good shove.”

Chris wheeled up to the viewport. “If this hasn't done it, I don't know what will. They're trying to cover such an enormous sphere of influence entirely by force.”

“Just so. The original Empire was Romulus, Remus and a couple of small colonies of dubious loyalty, maintained by frequent assaults and mainly used as prisons. The government depended on having total control over education and the media, allowing only slow, easily threatened civilian air and spacecraft, ruling over everything from the food supply to the quality of available entertainment. Now, civilian success in colonization has made Romulan territory so vast that random Tal Shiar terror raids can no longer maintain control. Civilian transport is now fast enough to escape and spread word even if subspace communications don't, and they nearly always do. There used to be a solid government lock on interplanetary news and discussion forums. That's out of control now. In Prime's timeline, that took another fifty years from this rough date. He was able to effect abandonment of the Neutral Zone, but not full unification. Our timeline is that much faster. If our people spend another year apart, I will be unpleasantly surprised.”

Nyota mouthed silently as if she were trying it out: _Ambassador Spock_. Skon had come in and regarded her with an eye-smile. “Ko'fu'kam, you would still wish that on him? It's _dangerous_.”

She giggled. Spock tried to look stern and didn't quite manage. “I am so glad they were able to patch the timeline properly. It would have been sad not to know you and take your cryptology class, which I really liked and didn't get to take while you were dead.”

“Ah. Speaking of that, the purpose for which I came.” Skon handed a piece of paper to Lia. “I could not render it on my padd that fast. I hope you can read my handwriting.” She shot her eyes sidewise at him with a smirk while he looked as innocent as usual. When she finished, she raised an eyebrow and handed it to T'Jhu, who blinked at it and gave it to Uhura, who burst out laughing.

“You're serious?” Skon nodded as solemnly as he could. The room waited for Lia's explanation. She stretched her legs out before her and stared at the piece of paper. “We have seen astonishing changes in the Romulan command structure over the past thirty years. We had a Klingon Praetor, albeit very briefly, as in half a day with a messy end and a lot of people trying to scrape off their support. We have seen people do anything and everything to get into the office, sacrificing family...literally, I mean, we were tasked with disposing of the last guy's mother-in-law. We dumped her on our Tal Shiar lockup on Talos 3 instead of out the airlock because believe me they deserve her and she deserves them.”

“Just so,” Lhairre agreed.

“Considering all of that, this is the dumbest thing I have ever seen any Romulan do, drunk or sober: Misery's invasion never had any official support.”

Uhura winced. “Ooh. As they say on Earth, 'all in.'”

“Oh, it gets better. When he deserted his post six weeks ago—yes, deserted, leaving some dubious minions to set up his palace at Kir Haran--and came this way with what tattered remnants survived his orders for extended flank speed, he left the entire back of the Empire unguarded. Given the upheaval, it was not possible for the Second Fleet to offer cover. Fortunately, the Klingons were not there. According to this rather distressed message from an old associate who is, in my judgment, entirely truthful in his desperation for orders and blame avoidance, there is a significant difficulty.”

“That phrase usually means 'body count,' in military speak,” Kirk observed.

“Possibly worse. Certainly more amusing. The Ferengi have occupied Kir Haran over the last week and are preparing to auction off the contents we didn't steal earlier.”

“The Fereng--” Of course they wouldn't obliterate anything or anyone. Even junk was worth money. Kirk looked out at the ragtail fleet's signatures and wobbling outlines. “If they're auctioning off equipment, is the Confederation buying?”

“There might be a few good pieces left. We have the funding now, after all.”

“I don't think I'm going to like this explanation.”

Chris Pike intervened. “It's okay, believe it or not. Treasure hunters have been scouring the Forge for years because a huge Kiri war chest disappeared during the Battle of the Salt Marsh. It as believed, and is now confirmed, that what wasn't vaporized was scattered through the desert by two of the ships that blew up in the First Exodus. Of course, the crew and cargo of those ships were recovered thanks to the past retrievals. Two full payloads of gold-pressed latinum are now worth considerably more than they were then.”

“Where it was possible, and any accounting existed, the amounts have been returned to the clans involved. That will be helpful for the newly returned from the distant past as well as present-day residents.” Lhairre made a small derisive noise. “Part of it now belongs to Mother, who was the sole survivor of her clan on either side of the Zone until my brothers and I were born.”

“The coffers of the Confederation are also enlarged by the Tal Shiar stashes we cleaned out on our way in when we raided the prisons. Oh, and by the Vulcan separatist cache on Delta Vega, which they thought we didn't know about. It was safe enough left in place for awhile. That was stolen from the planetary treasury and is best put in the Confederation general fund. There's also the Separatist cache that officially wasn't on P'Jem, stolen from the planetary government and smuggled out before they provoked the Andorian war, so it has merely been restored to its rightful place, minus the finder's fee we gave the Andorians in gratitude and assistance for their own rescue.”

Kirk slapped his forehead. “Back then, V'las was going to finance his own army.”

“Give the boy a gold star. He has enough green ones.” Lhairre waved toward the screen. “It looks as if they're almost ready for their entertainment.”

Misery's flagship materialized with a dramatic show of purple and red flickers, followed by its constellation of smaller ships. Kirk read the identifiers more closely; none was less than thirty years old. Most were much older, nearly all showed overdue maintenance alerts and several had “important system failure before maintenance cycle” warnings. “Did he not take care of anything there?”

“He is ignorant in most engineering matters and believes whatever his subordinates tell him. Since we put most of them there and he was too busy or bored with his work to notice, all he hears is that his ships are in perfect order. They are clean and shiny inside, the crews salute crisply and often and all of the stills work. So he judges his inspections, with a random beating here and there to enhance apparent morale.” Lhairre answered a call quietly, excused himself to a terminal and danced his fingers over it, scowling faintly at some items and nodding slightly at others. He spoke to someone who must have approved. “Now assuming they all function properly for another five minutes...” Flicks of adjustment caused small changes to the heads-up display on the window.

Maekh called. “Admiral, engineering has completed its task. We await your orders.”

Lia flicked her eyes from Lhairre to T'Jhu, then to Chris Pike, who nodded. “We are prepared. Let us hear him, be ready for any escapes, and put me through to Admiral Nogura, secure channel.”

Nogura was a little less sanguine about the exercise. “He gave me five minutes to surrender or he'll blow up the city, then the planet. This is really going to work, right?”

“I can be Vulcan and give you ninety-eight point four seven percent certainty, or Romulan and tell you of course it'll work, on my honor, and you can laugh your ass off while you watch it.”

“I'll take the latter. That looks like a mobile junkyard. Those are really old ships.”

“I know. Nice, isn't it?”

Nogura looked off screen. “There seem to be some adjustments in process.”

“That's us. We were in far more danger on New Vulcan when we weren't sure who was loyal. This time, his phaser arrays are already locked on stun and the disrupters are, ah, badly disrupted, all without his knowledge. Don't thank me, thank new Praetor Jisit and our man in Misery's guard for getting and processing the proper codes.”

“I keep thinking it couldn't work twice.”

“Strictly speaking, the formation and situation are not the same except for dramatic decloaking. This is barely a threat and much less worrisome.”

“So, we should let him attempt to fire on us?”

“But of course.”

The wait seemed like hours, but wasn't. The Romulan admiral barked orders to fire. His phasers went off, not in powerful blasts at Earth, but weakly at the other ships in his command, which shot back a lacework of feeble beams in pretty pastel colors. The open channel was a morass of swearing and demanding, not that any of it would do Misery any good. “They won't move,” Lia said. “Well, not where _he_ wants them to go. Commander Maekh, as you wish.”

“Commence!” the unseen commander barked.

The Romulan and Klingon ships answered their helms, but not their helmsmen. They performed a ballet, rolling and twirling to stack atop one another in a large cube. Kirk didn't want to laugh, but it was one of the most ludicrous displays of precision flying he had ever seen. “Most impressive, rekkhai,” he said to Lhairre, as straight-faced as he could manage.

“I didn't do the initial programming. That was the command academy graduation exercise from the year Maekh graduated, with the addition of Klingon vessels in the matrix. All I did was adjust the speeds and spacing to account for the size and shape of the warbirds. It was Maekh's idea.”

“She is as utterly demented as your wife.”

“Isn't she?” There was no mistaking a proud father even through his politely stony masking. “The two of you must get together and chat about your commands. It will be instructive for both of you, and the Klingons will be perpetually distressed because of it.”

T'Jhu waited until Lia glanced over. “The new admiral of the Second Fleet is on the comm.”

“Of course.” Part of the viewscreen was replaced by a smiling Romulan admiral. Smiling, in that context, seemed a tad inappropriate, but Kirk wasn't going to argue with all the other strangeness about him. He recognized her as the insanely brave Romulan who had stood off the attack on New Vulcan with half a ship. “So, Ael! Congratulations are in order?”

Yes, but she was being very polite. “If you wish, Admiral.”

“I do wish. No complications?”

“None. The former admiral's command unit and house guard has been disposed of on the Tal Shiar colony at Talos 3. The Talos 4 inhabitants offered to _entertain_ them, but we told them to wait a year or so to calm down first; it appears the former admiral had visited Talos 4 to ill effect some time ago. As for those already there, we took down a patrol and doctor, replaced their medical supplies and sent fresh food, since they seem incapable of realizing they're on a fertile planet and have appropriate seed stock. The former praetor, his mother-in-law and wife object to having to be on the same planet, but have no better suggestions, so they have gone to separate continents of their own free will and are trying to set up their own despotic regimes at the moment. We have successfully verified identity and mental integrity of everyone who made contact and returned. No stowaways, no controlled minds.”

“Excellent. Can you hold the Klingon border against anything they may try?”

“I believe so. The Organians have been quite helpful in that regard, and also quite firm. I do not anticipate problems, nor do I wish to cause any. The Praetor sends her regards and will soon arrive.”

“Just so. As for the matter at hand, commence transportation.”

“To confirm, our plan is still to send the non-allied crews to Tessilon 3?”

Lia glanced at her aide, who nodded. “Yes. The survey team pronounces it usable. The quarters have been left in place. They may be a bit crowded to begin with, but we left building supplies and the foundation pads are still there from the command barracks we blew up. You may use anything you need to get them there and secure the area in the usual way.”

Ael laughed. “Hellfire's mercy indeed!”

“Also, there are a few thoroughly fertile breeder tribbles in a stasis box, you know where, to be distributed as you think most useful. You may enjoy yourself, I mean, go.”

“Your orders will be carried out immediately and with great enthusiasm, rekkhai. Ael out.”

The connection closed. No one moved. Kirk wasn't sure they were all breathing. Lia was still leaning on the rail below the window; he realized her knuckles were white. So were Lhairre's as he tried to look casual beside her. Chris Pike rolled up to them. “That,” he said. “Incredible. The end of an operation that lasted over sixty years.”

She continued to stare out at the lacework of ships. Transporter beams flickered among them, sweeping their crews off to exile. At length, she forced a hand to let go, reached over and traced a line on Lhairre's forearm, no doubt some wound only she remembered. “Elev, was it worthwhile?”

He leaned into her lightly. “We'll see, but the alternative was nothing we'd want to live in.”

“I missed so much that was obvious. By being there, I wasn't here to order my Navy to go and look at the _Narada_. I should have known no one would go without an explicit order.”

“Then that was all kinds of screwed up,” Chris said. “On their part, not yours. I know how you treated your commanders. They didn't have to be so terrified that when an emergency came they couldn't act on their own initiative.”

“Initiative? They didn't have any. I should have known they had no will to break routine. The entire planet was endangered, and no one would go look until Mother finally listened to osu Surak, who was all but pleading with the Elders.”

“I did the same,” T'Jhu whispered. “I knew you would not be angry, yet I could not make myself issue orders in your absence because...because it is not done. I even debated whether or not to send a secure squib immediately and decided to wait for the usual time instead. If I had not...”

“It's done now, and well, T'Jhu. The only losses are those who collapsed in the intervening months or who refused to leave, as was their right. A handful, at most, and not your fault.”

T'Jhu had stuffed her hands into her pockets and looked briefly confused. “Oh...this is the robe I had on during the rescue. It may be good that I had not sent it through the refresher yet.” She withdrew a chocolate box. “The contraband from my desk. I dislike the coconut ones.”

Lia didn't snatch them away, but she did shove a candy into her mouth. “I can dispose of those for you with gratitude. For them, and for you. We are going to adjust a lot of attitudes in the next few years, beginning with the putative Admiral Roskov's. Rule one from now, T'Jhu: do what you know is right as soon as you know it needs done, and if I don't like it, tell me which orifice to use for my complaints!”


	27. Nobod Expects the Vulcan Inquisition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody expects the Vulcan Inquisition...or most of what they do here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who have not seen Chevy Chase's magnificent rant at the end of Christmas Vacation, Nick quotes heavily from it. The chapter title comes from the old Monty Python skit, which is just as ridiculous as you'd think.

Landing in San Francisco was surreal. The press was mobbing Starfleet headquarters and the Vulcan embassy in equal proportions. Pike told Kirk they were better off hiding with the Vulcans until the known loyal security elements had time to lock down Section 31. They beamed into the lot between the Vulcans' back garden and the Andorians' back gate, with enough heavily armed surveillance to make Kirk feel halfway safe even when Spock stepped away from him briefly.

Three Andorians ran out to meet Ambassador Shras. He embraced the first two quickly, then stooped to take the smallest and thinnest, a tiny graceful woman, up in his arms. Sarek tried to look mildly disgusted by the emotional display. The small Andorian giggled at him and spoke too quietly for Kirk to hear, extending a hand past Shras' shoulder to Amanda, who laughed.

“It seems so, Silka. I'm so glad you're here. Who else can I play poker with on Thursdays?”

They parted ways to their own embassies. The Vulcan aides had assembled in the meeting room inside the door, and most struggled to hide their shock at seeing Amanda. Sarek made to address them without delay. “Expect a mass arrival of guests from New Vulcan in five point five minutes. This may provoke profound emotions, for which the cause suffices. I expect you to greet the guests as you feel appropriate. Have your mates here if you have married or bonded recently.”

They were quiet and obedient, but not quite as petrified as Kirk recalled from the time he had spent after the _Vengeance_. Half of them were already coming up from the kitchens with platters. One who had to be a cousin to Spock asked him “Are we soon to meet kin rescued from the past?”

“Yes. Perhaps not those you expect.” It was as honest and kind an answer as he could make.

Transporters hummed in the garden and the doors opened to the slow procession of parents, looking around in confusion and wonder. The shock across the room multiplied as the aides found their own, introduced bondmates and babies and shared news of more grandchildren on the way. The parents asked questions: _How did you manage? You went to...Dubai, did you say? Where are 'Las Vegas' and 'Mojave'? There are deserts nearby on this planet? He is k'turr? Considering the situation, and your clear contentment, we cannot fault your logic. This food is unfamiliar, but interesting. You prepared this yourself?_

One couple met their young son's equally young Orion wife, who spoke to them with all the restraint she could manage, all the while lovingly rubbing her pregnant belly. She was about to give birth not to a child of her own, but one of theirs. “She is your embryo from the fertility clinic,” the girl explained. “The storage units were among the very few items successfully removed from the planet on va'Pak. It seemed right to have his sister since he would otherwise have had no one. Now, I hope you welcome her. If not, we will bring her up as our own firstborn, as we had planned.”

“She is welcome, she is so very welcome. You would really do this for us?” That was genuine shock and wonder on the Vulcan father's face. “It took us four attempts to get he who is your husband, and we were told we could never have another with our own bodies. We had been waiting for a surrogate. That you would be so kind...”

The young man said “Father, you will have to hear of the kindness that has surrounded us. Nothing I believed about Terrans was true. What I believed about Orions was even less so, as I quickly discovered once Gianna and I met.”

His mother reached over the young woman's bump again, shaking her head slowly in wonder. “My daughters. Our physiology is indeed very, very similar. With, ah, some exceptions.”

“More culture than physiology,” the Orion said cheerfully. “We _do_ like to have sex a lot.”

Nyota gave Spock a sharp look and an even sharper elbow in the ribs. He merely lifted an eyebrow at her. Anyone looking on would have thought him to be his usual calm self. The image he tossed at her, however, made Kirk inhale cookie crumbs. Strictly speaking, Spock probably didn't need to slap his back that hard before he and Nyota disappeared into the crowd and made their way toward the elevators.

“What was that about?” Bones demanded, then saw Kirk's expression. “ _Oh_. They may miss all the fun of Roskov's hearing at this rate, and I really doubt they're going to care.”

Bones saw a healer he knew in the room and went over to talk to her. Kirk was, for a moment, alone in a corner. He pulled out his padd and brought up Carol's code. _Back in town for the rest of the hearing. How you doing?_

_On duty till Saturday. If we don't get killed or deployed, you doing anything then?_

_Depends on the hearing, but if that winds up the way it should, vids, pizza and beer?_

_Sounds good. See you then._

He closed the comm app and put the padd back in his pocket, thinking of all he'd have to explain to her, and not feeling the least afraid to do it.

 

While the aides and parents caught up, transporters hummed constantly in the parking lot and lobby as shuttles landed like a small airport. Kirk stood in the upstairs hall watching his Vulcans get their game faces on. For Lia, that was literal. Lhairre took a moment to put her hair up in Hellfire's ornate style, then she went into their quarters and returned in full kit in a couple of minutes. “It still amazes me.” Lhairre had stepped into their room and came out in his own full dress. Broad as his shoulders were, the gray robes padded them out further and made him frankly terrifying. “The makeup is programmed into her cosmetic unit. She can spray it on in fifteen seconds, put in those dark contacts and disappear. If she needs the scar to have texture, that takes another minute before the spray. Chris!--which uniform do you want Jim to wear?”

Chris had motored to his own digs to pretty up. “Yours. They're still TDYed to you.”

“Whatever you want. We're glad for the loan.”

One of the many aides brought Kirk a dress uniform, no doubt custom-replicated, sans outer robe. “ _Definitely_ this material for Starfleet's new ones,” he said to Chris. “You know how scratchy and uncomfortable the old full dress is?”

“There are soft as a newborn kitten,” Bones agreed. “Nothing rubs, pinches or chokes.”

Lhairre had a pocketful of medals and tags to put on their collars. “If it did, we wouldn't be wearing it. Most Vulcans have sensory issues and we don't inflict rough seams on ourselves. Also, our shoes fit. Only Masters of Gol try to put up with bad boots on purpose. That's a control exercise most of them flunk.” He eyed Bones' uniform. “Doctor, do you enjoy fighting?”

“Good Lord, no.”

He folded Bones' sleeves only halfway up his forearms, laying in the same careful creases. “That is _your_ visual signal that you are a noncombatant, but if anyone chooses to ignore that, There Will Be Consequences because you're with us.”

“Just so,” John said. Kirk turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin. “Not used to it?”

“You turned into Solkar of Vulcan on me.” It seemed silly to think of John being magnificent, but when he was in solid black under his crimson and gold robe, he looked like his First Contact portrait with additional majesty due to his traces of gray hair. “That is, um, impressive.”

“Do I look that fancy?” John lifted a lapel to show him the black underlayer was, in fact, his duty scrubs. _Still me, Jim_. “I have my tricorder and kit in case we need them.”

“That isn't as comforting as it should be.” He gulped. “Neither is _that_.”

Sarek had indeed put on his Shanai Guards black, with the addition of a black robe festooned with a large silver monogram. At least Skon was so willowy that he looked more dignified than frightening. He tossed a gray Navy dress robe to Kirk. “I believe you need that.”

He put it on without thinking, looked down at the lapel and slowly puzzled out the elegant calligraphy. S'Harien Sikar. “Oh...”

“I put just your Vulcan name on it,” Skon said. “If you'd like both, or the other...?”

The lump in his throat threatened to undo him if the warm hum of Spock's silent approval didn't. “No, it's fine, really, it's...I'm at a loss for words. I started this year with no family around that wanted me except the ones on the ship. This is evidence that it's changed.”

“Technically it should be your mother's name, but we don't like her and _she's_ not Vulcan, so,” Rana shrugged. She handed Skon her hairbrush. “Hm. Do tell.”

The Vulcan woman making her way to them was stunning, the man half-hiding behind her much less so. Kirk didn't recall seeing another Vulcan who looked quite as dense. His field felt confused, while she was having difficulty masking joy and relief. She still tried to look indifferent as she moved toward Spock and Uhura. “Live long and prosper, Lieutenant Uhura, Spock.”

They were equally dignified as they returned the gesture. ”Peace and long life, T'Pring.”

There was a pause which might have been described as supremely uncomfortable had they not both been Vulcan. She regarded Uhura with a mildly raised eyebrow. “You and I have business of the sort requiring witnesses.” Spock tilted his head in the _Yes?_ Motion. T'Pring cast about for words, and her eyes landed on the cup of water Uhura had just picked up. “Uhura, I will take that water.”

It seemed rude, to say the least, but Uhura seemed not at all put out. “In exchange,” she said in Vulcan as she handed it over. “I believe it to be a more than fair trade.”

T'Pring drank the water, almost at a gulp. “I have the better of it. Have I witnesses?”

“You have,” Solkar said, the warmth in his voice surprising.

“Indeed,” said Rana. “The exchange is fair and properly done. That will do quite well.”

“Go, and be fruitful and content,” Spock said.

“Likewise, be as fruitful as you wish and more content than you can imagine.” T'Pring permitted herself a tiny sigh of relief and reached for the other man's hand. “Spock, I owe you his life.”

“No, Captains Kirk and Ruven thought of the answer. Nonetheless, I am pleased for you.”

“And relieved,” T'Pring muttered, “just as I am. This is Stonn, who will be my bondmate.”

“He'd better be,” John said with that gentle smile.

T'Pring searched his face for a moment, then all but beamed with hope. “Is it so! I was concerned the idea was merely flawed logic.”

“It is not, and she is well.”

Stonn's expression when he looked down at T'Pring told them all they needed to know. “I still do not understand the difficulty,” he said, “but I am here now, and that will be more than acceptable.”

The couple went off together. Bones muttered “What the hell just happened?”

“I bought Spock from her for a cup of water,” Uhura giggled. “It's a very old ceremony when neither party wants to keep a child bond. Selling him was the quickest way for her to get out of having to marry him when she obviously had Stonn in mind.”

“Stonn. Dumb as a box of rocks,” Nick growled, “but honest and hard-working and nothing will ever stop him from taking care of her to the end of his days. She could do worse.”

“Since she's pregnant, she could do much worse. We've had enough fake DNA around without her trying to pass a child off as Spock's. Not that she didn't try by artificial means when she thought it was her duty to our species,” John added. “In her case, 'no bond, no baby' was entirely true. As soon as she had Stonn back, two days were all it took. It may be early, but there is already an excellent clear female signal that is at least ninety-five percent positive for viability.”

Kirk began to count up the mothers from the rescue. “I never did find out about one couple we brought in. She was our first patient on the first night, the woman with the broken back, then her husband crawled in at Low Springs and insisted on helping care for the others until he couldn't move.”

“Oh, them!” Judy had arrived as well. “He's doing very well and is beginning to walk in the hallways. The mother is still in a spine frame on low gravity, but will recover. We delivered her yesterday. The baby's increasing weight and motion were in the way of the mother's back healing, and that caused some blood flow issues that made an early birth safer than waiting for little Svai. If both parents weren't injured, she might be able to go home with a nurse checking in daily. Instead, they're all in a family room and should be discharged together in two months. She's the last we had any question about. There were very few losses after retrieval. Believe it or not, the Great Rescue has a higher mortality rate.”

“Incredible.” Kirk shook his head. “All of it is. Still, I was there, and it happened. And now we're here, and by the look of things, the hearing is about to happen too.”

“Hm,” Rana grumbled. “I have never quite understood the expression 'put on your game face,' but the idea of a 'go to hell suit' may be apropos.”

“Not so much that we should, but that we should give directions,” Sarek added. He looked around the suddenly crowded hallway. “I assume we are all prepared.”

“Ready as we're going to be.” Lia paused at the door her aide held. Her mother was doing the same, waiting for her. “Oh, come on, Mother. We'll do this the way we're going to manage what's coming: together.”

Mother and daughter walked through shoulder to shoulder, aides at their backs, husbands half a step behind, with the rest of the crowd falling in behind them and more beaming down and catching up. Spock motioned Nyota ahead. She was about to protest, shrugged and let him keep place between her and Kirk and half a step behind both.

Though the Federation chamber was huge, given the number of people who suddenly wished to attend, the proceedings had been moved to the larger hall used for concerts and Academy graduations. It still wasn't big enough. There was no rush or jostling, only a quiet flow of Vulcans through the doors until there was not a bit of space left other than the reserved seats down front. While they waited for an aisle to clear, Kirk glanced out the big windows. “Whoa.”

“Extraordinary,” Sarek agreed.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Fascinating. I estimate thirty thousand.”

Chris asked his aide a quiet question, then chuckled. “You don't see the other fifty-some thousand plus what looks like most of Carbon Creek, Vulcan or not. They took the lower deck seats when they got here this morning. The smaller chamber is on video, the big screen is on outside and I think all the chairs are already out there, so even that is standing room only. Also, the Navy Choir has landed and is prepared to entertain.”

Lia turned to her aide. “Is the word of the rescue out yet?”

“Ha, rekkhai. It has aired on planetary news within the past minute.”

“Then I have no objection if they perform whatever they wish.”

The aide bowed crisply and went outside for a word with the choir director. In a moment, the choir struck up the new Confederation anthem, and the waiting crowd joined in. Of course they knew the new words if they'd heard them once or twice, and nearly all could stay on key. “From darkness light must always come. So we will rise, a trillion strong, till every soul on every world is free...”

Sarek's diplomatic smirk had returned. “Holy shit,” Kirk breathed. “They just claimed the whole damned Empire.”

Lia shrugged. “I have for years. To be fair, only the Vuhlkansu, but the Remans _are_ fine folk and welcome to join us as they wish.”

“The heart of Gol, the soul of Kir, we all must stand with one accord...” Lhairre smirked. “Which I already do.--Syran's own children go to greet ShiKahr...Hello, Mother, Father.”

“Check,” Rana muttered. “There's another walking peace treaty, Jisit.”

“One Praetor, right in your hands, little daughter,” Lhairre's mother greeted Lia with outstretched palms. “We had a time getting through the crowd out there, and I am glad of it.”

The bodyguards and Federation security conferred quietly. One of them opened the chamber door and escorted the party to their places. The Rigellian Federation president and his bodyguards rose to meet them. “T'Rana, this is somewhat irregular. This person with you is--?”

“Praetor Jisit of the Romulan Star Empire,” she said.

Jisit bowed and made the ta'al. “Live long and prosper, President Kras.”

“As I said...this is not the normal diplomatic situation, but the situation above us was most irregular as well. Praetor, may I ask your intentions?”

“As I said in our subspace communications, with the ongoing warfare in the Empire I cannot hope to speak for everyone, but there is general agreement of the need for a truce with the Federation. Some of the worlds now declaring autonomy may well decide to request Federation membership as soon as they can stop fighting one another long enough to vote. In the meantime, the Fourth Fleet is in its proper place guarding New Vulcan, the First is in its proper place guarding Romulus, the Second is watching the Klingons...and the Third, its admiral having been extraordinarily stupid, is now in a big pretty latticework that won't untangle half as well as when we made that formation with small birds of prey and no giant warbirds stuck in it. Furthermore, any military hardware we had that was worth anything is now in Federation-allied hands. Everything else is old enough and in poor enough repair to pose little threat. Oh, and the Yyaio from T'Khasi are back, so don't _you_ start any crap with them either. They beat hell out of the Empire when they only had ten thousand to work with.”

President Kras was used to the Vulcan delegation, but Kirk suspected this had rattled his mental cage in a significant way. Even so, he merely sighed. “Is the Praetor to be a part of the hearing?”

“Yes, Mr. President. I have information about the putative Admiral Roskov and the Vulcans' contention that matters are not as they seem.”

“Very well, then.” The president scratched his head. “You mean... _these_ Vulcans. Your in-laws and, er, all these others in the Confederation.”

“Yes, sir. Most of those who call themselves Romulans think so, but are afraid to talk about it.”

“Should they still be?”

“No, but they don't know that yet. Word gets around more slowly than it should because of the old restrictions on data transmission. We're getting rid of those at the moment so there should be no further problems with people being able to have access to any news they want or need.”

The president nodded at the floor. “Does this mean we can monitor Romulan media now?”

Jisit motioned to one of the aides, who checked a padd. “Rekkhai, not all barriers are down—the Tal Shiar had a lot of odd ones in some ridiculous places—but all major media outlets and their archives are now open.” That started a small flurry of padd-grabbing and searching as most of the audience looked past the Zone. On a hunch, Kirk looked up a popular search engine's trends. Most people were downloading...oh. That figured. Some things never changed.

The president tucked his own padd into his pocket. “We will take a short recess in order to be sure we have all proper safeguards in place and are ready to commence the hearing. Let us reconvene in fifteen minutes. Spectators may remain.”

Kirk goggled at the variety. “Not _that_ different,” Uhura whispered in Kirk's ear. “I do have three years' worth of a space series based on Kril'es Mak's Exodus novels.”

The author in question was wedged against the divider behind them. “Is it any good?”

“Don't know yet. It looks as if they've gone through _The Rising, Starcrossed_ and _Beam Up The Captain_ so far. There's a huge fight among fans over which commander was better and whether you should watch in walkthrough holo or flatscreen.”

The writer beamed. “Things really _don't_ change!”

Kirk turned to Spock, who was intent on grabbing as much as he could as fast as possible. “Star charts? Engineering specs?”

“Aunt Lia brought those over. We have had all of the Romulan military's secrets.” He tapped quickly, sending files to backup storage. “These _gardening manuals_ should be enlightening.”

Nyota looked over his shoulder. “So should those _cookbooks_ you're getting. _Hey_!” She gave him a strange look. He merely returned her gaze, but Kirk felt that intention as well. Lia leaned across his shoulder to look.

“You two need a trip downtown before you watch _that_. Corner of Haight and Park. Other than Central Prostitution Supply at Kir Haran, they have the best range of scents and flavors.”

The comment almost undid Nyota's valiant attempt to blend in with the Vulcans. Lhairre leaned forward, as impassive as could be. “Kasa. They have kasa. Only place I have ever found it.”

“We'll have to get them to start carrying Love-Devil brand in sunberry.” Lia flicked through her padd. “This is not... well, it's not that dirty to us. I don't know how else to explain it. You know how little of Vulcan society is dedicated to sex?” Everyone nodded. “The Sundered went rather too far in the other direction, not unlike their attitude toward strong drink and recreational drugs. Fortunately, most ordinary people who have to get up and go to work in the morning don't overuse the latter two, but you may still think the shows are—Download _Hard Time_. It's a comedy set in a Tal Shiar prison. That alone will explain almost everything. Try the 'Doing the Laundry and Decius' episode.”

While Kirk waited for the proceedings, he watched the vid. It opened with two scantily clad women frantically necking in the middle of a muddy walkway. All around them, people appeared to be doing laundry in big tubs of suds, using huge washboards on stains and tramping the clothing as they might grapes. The couple was beside a similar trough full of what looked like uniforms. They seemed oblivious to it, and most everything. “Hey!” A guard prodded at them lightly with a boot.

The one on the bottom looked up. “Oh, sorry, Decius, we were taking a break. Wanna join us?”

“Like to, but can't. Inspection tomorrow, you know how that is. I'm supposed to tell you get back to work already because we need those uniforms hand-processed.”

The woman looked at the other, snapped her fingers as if she had an idea, tossed her lover into the trough and resumed rolling around with her in the bubbles, thrashing the clothes in the process. “Good work, girls!” The guard tossed aside his cloak and jumped in, too.

“That's the family viewing version,” Lhairre said. Kirk decided he'd like to visit Romulus.

When the Federation president reconvened the hearing, Roskov and his attorney began to whine on the same line of questioning, as if nothing had been amiss upstairs, and the judge called a halt to it. “You have no new questions and at this point you're merely being insulting. Are there any questions from Admiral T'Lia's counsel?”

Rana replaced the attorney who had been advising Lia before. “None, Your Honor.”

“I haven't finished with you. I haven't even finished with this _planet_!” Roskov bellowed.

“He doesn't know, does he?” Kirk murmured.

Spock shook his head. “He was incommunicado during the attack and when everyone arrived.”

Roskov whipped out a communicator. “BaH!” Nothing happened, and he repeated the order. Still nothing happened, and he smacked the communicator against his palm. A titter ran through the more k'turr parts of the audience. He cast his eyes around wildly, and the big screen illuminated with the replay of the graduation exercise. Sure enough, by his jaw-dropped expression, he hadn't had a clue. He hadn't even registered that the full house in the arena was nearly all Vulcan and far more than the ten thousand original survivors. His mind was such a clear _What the hell?_ that Kirk heard.

Lia's aide handed her a small handful of fur that she passed over the railing to Rana, in whose hands it purred and cooed. Rana walked over to Roskov. The furball hissed. “Interesting.”

Roskov recoiled violently. “That tribble doesn't prove--”

“Perhaps this will.” The doors opened to a couple of Starfleet security guards escorting an actual, and very angry, admiral. “Mr. President,” Rana said, “I believe Admiral Roskov would like to speak with Admiral Roskov. Or perhaps punch him. I do not know which he prefers.”

The real Roskov wasted no time and didn't bother with Standard. “You without name or honor! You have brought even more shame on the house of Duras, not that it could get much worse for such a bunch of p'TaQ! Broken Bow will be avenged!”

“Oh, that's right, Admiral Roskov _is_ from that area,” Kirk muttered.

Amanda leaned over. “It's worse than the fake one thinks. The real one is a direct descendant of Captain Klaang on his mother's side and the Long Hairs on his father's. Roskov is a name from a distant forefather. He's mostly Cherokee. This will be entertaining. I'm resisting the urge to trill in his honor right now.”

“You allowed yourself to be taken prison--” The fake Roskov, whose plastic surgery was indeed impressive, glanced around the disdaining crowd. “Hey, I thought I was going to get away with it. If Admiral Misery hadn't been such a hopeless coward--”

“He is _not_ a coward,” Lia interrupted. “He's an idiot and a traitor, but he isn't smart enough to be afraid and that's a requirement for being a coward. Also, _you're_ the one who ran away screaming from a battle. Do you or your counsel have any rebuttal?”

“You smooth-faces have no right to--”

“Your mother has a smooth forehead!” the real one roared. “And so do you!”

The fake Roskov tried to bolt. The real one trilled and went after him. As Amanda had predicted, things immediately became interesting.

 

The former Admiral Roskov, otherwise known as Kung of the house of Duras, no longer looked smug, which was wise considering he was surrounded by a contingent of Vulcan Navy security guards and chained to a witness chair. Three hours of questioning later, starting with his furious former prisoner who was not in the least amused by his identity theft, he no longer looked arrogant, nor human.

The cluster of Vulcan and Federation lawyers muttered and advised, but the main line of questioning belonged to the tall woman in haze-gray robes and dramatic makeup. She moved with slow grace, an unnatural act for anyone who knew her, and on that day she was purely, mercilessly Vulcan. Kirk and Spock watched her logic peel away the layers of lies that had been necessary to conceal Roskov's long collusion with the Romulans.

The relatives were silently impressed. Sarek had put on his best impassive face where he sat, his brother and Soran beside him as his aides. The ambassadors emeritus had their own seats in the gallery, just in front of the Starfleet contingent. That was a good thing, because half-asleep Mestral was keeping up one of his running translations. Nobody was cracking a smile, not even Spock at his side, though the undercurrent was about to burst.

“You misinterpreted the situation,” not-Roskov whined.

Nick muttered “I was _actually_ a Klingon instead of a patsy for them like you thought.”

Lia stalked toward him and stopped an arm's length away. “Have I really? Here is the record of your orders and your ships' movements during the Battle of New Vulcan.”

Nick snorted “Just in case anyone missed it, here's how stupid your plot was and how fast you bailed when you realized the Romulans would just as soon kill you too.”

It wasn't a pretty picture and Lia didn't leave out any of it. When she finished, Kung fidgeted for a moment and spluttered “Overwhelming Romulan presence, plus the Klingon vessel I was unsure of!”

“I thought the Romulans were all with me, but one ship was standing off the rest, and the Loyalist Klingons showed up unannounced, so I got scared and ran before they realized I wasn't the real Roskov,” Nick growled. He went on in that vein while Lia continued her slow sculpting. The Klingon's attorney offered a few attempts to discredit her, not that any of them worked, and took a couple of desperate stabs at upsetting her with personal insults about her fitness and jabs at her weight because he didn't appear to realize she was pregnant. They went on in spite of the Federation president banging a gavel and resorting to traditional Rigellian flamespit to settle them.

Mestral held up a hand. “Hey, Prez, this isn't really court, right?”

The president wiped his lip and extinguished the tissue. “No, technically it's a hearing. I'm supposed to prevent anyone from acting stupid, but he's not taking the hint.”

“Sure he is. He's not _acting_. Lemme talk to him.”

“Why not? Makes as much sense as anything else that has happened this extraordinary morning. Bring Ambassador Mestral out here,” he said to the guards.

Nick was correctly robed, but it wouldn't have taken a psychic to see he was running on the dregs of his reserves. Instead of his usual masculine shadow when he went by, Kirk sensed a more feminine...oh. Maggie's katra was all the strength he had left, and she wasn't happy about the situation either. John didn't move, but muttered “This is going to be good.”

“Should we stop him?”

“By no means. I can't think of anything clever. He won't be able to think of anything that isn't.”

Nick stamped to the middle of the arena, arms folded. “Not-Admiral whatever the hell your name is. Nick Mestral, chief negotiator, UMWA local 3751. Oh. And Vulcan Navy. I think I'm still a sub-commander. You know what? There was this foreman at Carbon Creek Four who tried to get us to go under unsupported roof to get one last cut in at the end of the day. Dangerous as hell, could have got a whole crew killed. I got in his face, said 'You're an asshole,' and we went home. There was this company shill union president who offed his opponent. At his trial I got in his face and said 'You're an asshole,' and _he_ went to _prison_.”

“Really,” not-Roskov scoffed. “So?”

“So here we are, and you lack the genitals to own up to having run from a fight. If you were Vulcan, it might be okay. We run from a fight if it means keeping a planet alive or not killing somebody who is out of his mind or one way or another keeping the peace and doing the right thing. You weren't doing the right thing. You were running off so the Romulans could take over New Vulcan and kill what was left of us. I mean, it isn't a problem any more, because we're back, and we got the ones out of the past and the ones out of prisons and a metric crapton of them who just wanted to be from over there who don't know they're us yet, but that's not the point. You were trying to get rid of all two thousand on New Vulcan and then come and get the rest of us on Earth, and that wasn't very nice. Also, this real admiral you kidnapped doesn't think you were very nice. Also also, when you can't think of any valid criticism of Admiral T'Lia, who outranks hell out of you and practically everybody here and if she doesn't she should because she spent over sixty years doing what nobody else would and getting together the people to lance that giant boil on the ass of the universe that was the Tal Shiar, it's real hard to think anything good about you. I'm supposed to look for your inner light, but today you got a dirty lampshade and I can't see it. So listen, you brainless, heartless, hopeless--”

It was an inspired rant, though it didn't sound original. John blinked, looked something up and passed his padd around. “It's an old vid, _Christmas Vacation._ He does enjoy this scene so.” The vid's main character was shouting an incoherent string of obscenities, to which Nick added some that made even less sense. Vulcans in the audience were looking things up and murmuring in astonishment.

“...did he really just imply that Kung copulates with swine and licks reptiles?”

“Imply, no, state, yes,” another whispered. “Those must be colorful Earth metaphors.”

“Earth is a very interesting place. We should investigate its culture more thoroughly, especially this thing called eggnog.”

“...sack of monkey shit, _you're an asshole!_ I'm going home, you're going to prison, and far as I'm concerned you can go to hell!” Nick roared. He snapped back to a stone face. “Thank you, Your Honor. Lia, honey, somebody should probably arrest him, huh?”

The Klingon tried to take off past Nick. Even in Nick's weakened condition, he grabbed a wrist and flipped it behind the Klingon's back before the guards could catch him. Lia snatched his other arm and took over until the guards produced restraints. The Vulcans happened to be sitting beside the aisle where the guards were compelled to take not-Roskov out of the room. He decided to spit on as many as possible, missed most of them, and in a last burst of desperation took a wild handcuffed lunge at Lia.

She might have retaliated had a fist not swung out, popping not-Roskov in the jaw so crisply that he went down without a sound. While the bailiffs removed him on a stretcher and the rest of the crowd milled and oozed toward the exits, Rana stepped back over the railing, trying to fold her hands politely but giving in to rubbing her right. “Ko'fu'kam, you could have mentioned that punching a Klingon in the face stings.”

Lia conceded the point with a small shrug. “My regrets, ko'mi; I had not anticipated your needing that information. However, I must remark on your excellent form.”

One of her bodyguards looked around. “Admiral, in light of the entirety of this situation, not being around San Francisco for a few days might be an excellent idea.”

“Just so, Arev. There will be the usual delay before any legal action. Is the transporter ready?”

“It may be more obvious than one more shuttle in what has become quite a number of them.”

“Hm, logical. The embassy shuttles?”

“I took the liberty of arranging them, yes.”

“Excellent.” She looked around. “Shall we depart for Carbon Creek, Mother? You do have a delivery appointment tomorrow morning.”

“Yes. However, I may need to reschedule a bit.”

Lia paused with her hand on the door. “Indeed?”

“I had anticipated needing the same amount of preparatory time as the last labor. Silek was much larger and not as cooperative. Arre has complied with every instruction and completed the early phases in commendable fashion.”

“Ah. The Academy hospital is nearby should it be less than tolerable.”

“It is not so urgent. I prefer my previous arrangements.”

“Then I shall take care of these matters while you arrange everyone on the shuttles.”

Nick wobbled up. “What she means is, she'll take off her makeup but she'll hustle. Rana, even if you have to pop the kid out on the way you have a whole shipload of medics.”

“And _doctors_ ,” Bones protested. "Who have been treating Vulcans for weeks!"

“Ah, yeah, I forgot you guys. Anyhow. We all getting on the bus here?”

They were, before the press had time to clue in, and Bones for once flung himself into a window seat without so much as a whimper. “I'd rather get space-sick than questioned.”

“Permit me,” Spock said, leaning across Kirk to grab both of Bones' wrists. His thumbs dug into the nausea-blocking point, which he was now able to locate on a human wrist without a second thought. The doctor yelped predictably. Kirk knew the strength of those hands and tried to sympathize. “That should suffice until we land.”

Lia, herself again, jogged up, made her usual light vault into her seat and lifted off. Kirk turned his attention to Rana, who was explaining to Uhura. “It is technically possible to wait at least overnight before delivery, but it becomes uncomfortable and after six to eight hours the risk of complications goes up markedly. She can easily wait until we're settled at Memorial, even if she is of a different opinion. Such an impatient and emotional child.”

Skon lifted a eyebrow. “Almost as if she were part Human.”

“Oh, shut up. That is how you say it, correct?” Nyota nodded without cracking a smile. “Or as my grandmother said when she wearied of my loudly voiced opinions, 'Kolige, Rana'kam.' Never with ill intent, I must add.”

Nyota thought about it. “Nick's mother, right? I'm trying to keep everyone in the correct place on the family tree.”

“Yes. The one for whom Arre is named. I spent almost as much time at her clan farm as I did at the shop. T'Mir expected me to pursue a law career and thought boredom on the farm might push me in that direction. All it did was teach me how to work with my hands, which has been most useful throughout my life. On few occasions has the law degree been of such use, today being one.”

Skon nudged her. “Do you need to lie down? That was a long day in court, and now this.”

“No, adun, I'm well. I've done this twice before, the monitoring is excellent, I know what we're doing and she listens well. Sarek doesn't count because I had no input on his output.”

“Speaking of.” John handed a padd up the aisle. “T'Jhu retrieved that from the office.”

“The missing pictures.” Rana flipped to the ones she wanted. “Most Vulcans don't need them because we remember and memories are passed down. However, those first months of his life are all but lost to me, and were until these resurfaced. This. How he survived.”

“Look again,” John said, not unkindly. “Those are T'Mir's hands. That's _you_ , fresh out of stasis.”

“Interesting. I never realized Sarek resembled me that much.” To anyone else, it would have been impossible to miss. She flicked at the padd and flinched ever so slightly. “My genetic mother.”

Kirk leaned across to look. The same baby lay in the hands of a beautiful woman in a rocking chair. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she was trying to smile for one last family picture in pale early morning light. She was leaning against Nick, who was struggling not to look miserable. Four other children surrounded the couple, a young man in his earl twenties, a boy about four and two girls who looked a year or so younger. Two weeks ago, it would have been a curiosity, a sad picture of someone else's family. _Dad had her eyes. Grandma Lena has her hair, like mine. Frank would hate my having this to look at_. He thought of Sybok--“if I can't look like Sarek, I won't look like Hakeev”--and understood; though in his case bio-dad had been the disaster, the choice hadn't belonged to the child.

 _No wonder Father has always liked you best_ , Spock thought at him. _T'Mir looked nothing like him, but his Terran grandmother certainly did_.

Bones stretched his neck. “Whatcha looking at, Jim?”

“Family,” he said, and his smile lasted all the way to Carbon Creek.


	28. Welcome Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tying up all the loose ends, and leaving some new ones :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knitters unite ...I had to throw that in somewhere :)

Lia landed the heavy craft like a snowflake on the rooftop shuttle pad of Kadur Memorial. Rana pried herself out and waddled—there was no other word for it—to the upper door. “You all might as well wait if you want. It won't take us long. Skon, are you coming in with me?”

He might have been taken aback, though he merely cocked his head in gentle curiosity. “An interesting offer. Are you certain?”

“Might be your last chance to see this. Birth, I mean, not the rest.” She couldn't quite manage her imperious strut, but she led the way into the hospital's maternity atrium, where Judy the doctor met them. “I know we're early, but she is so low as to be inconvenient. Can you work us in?”

“Not a problem yet, but it's better that you're early than later. We're booked solid beginning next week, and from there it gets really interesting. If all goes well, we'll deliver more Vulcan children here and on New Vulcan in the next three months than we have in the past five years combined, and by next year there will be three times as many, including this one.” She patted her own belly, looked down at her tricorder and raised an eyebrow at Rana. “Half an hour, give or take five minutes, then of course the scans and paperwork and we'd want you to spend the night, but she should be suitable for introductions within two hours. We have a big family waiting and greeting room if the rest of you wish.”

“As I said, you might as well,” Rana said almost cheerfully.

“Why not?” Amanda beamed, and Sarek followed her, along with the rest of the crowd.

The room was Vulcan, with a meditation corner, incense brazier and floor to ceiling windows that had a view over the hills. Beyond them was pure Earth. Autumn leaves were in full blaze on the heights, still changing in the deep valley below the hospital where the old town lay. In a corner was a brewer with mint tea and packets of fruit chips eerily like the ones they had handed out in the desert. Kirk opened one and flashed back to night, heat and the cold-iron taste of T'Khasi's lost sands.

 _That was mine, too, and I never knew it_. He munched on the dried fruit (plum-like, grape-like, a crunchy slice similar to apple, all safe for him, he knew) and thought about the overturning of these last months. _At least I got to see T'Khasi. If it never comes back, I was there_.

“Yes,” Spock said. “Precisely. It _was_ , and that sufficed.” _Grateful to be there under any circumstances. Horrified but fascinated by the way we acted then. Grateful beyond thought that going back to rescue them rescued us_.

Sarek had tucked his hands into his sleeves, as usual, and seemed to be twiddling his thumbs, as usual, but with a slight air of desperation. He gave a furtive glance around the waiting room and appeared to make a momentous decision. When he flipped back the cuff in his way, Kirk saw he had a tiny very bright pink sweater mostly finished on a set of double-pointed knitting needles. “Amanda,” he said, and motioned.

She was amused as she reached into his sleeve and extracted a spare needle from an inner pocket. “Ran out of time? No, you didn't expect her for a few days.”

“When you were gone, I did a lot of this at night. The aides' unexpected productivity had me behind schedule even before this week's developments. It's the usual pattern.”

“Ah, yes.” Amanda took one sleeve while he worked on the other. “But eye-frying fuchsia?”

“At Arre's request. She seems to have acquired the idea of colors from Mother.”

“Hm. I'll have to ask James his preference.”

“Forest green, actually,” Sarek said. “As he thinks, 'tree leaf color.' Lia's wants a specific shade of dusty rose, which I have yet to acquire.”

“Very Romulan,” Lia chuckled. “Favorite color of a lot of people over there.”

“These sweaters,” Amanda said. “There is, of course, a logical reason.”

“It is cold on Earth and not much warmer on New Vulcan. We had difficulty keeping the hospital warm enough after the battle. Even the cold ward for head injuries did not require artificial cooling. I was surprised by the appearance of snow. The planetary shields diverted a substantial percentage of solar energy.”

Lia slapped her forehead and sent a message. “Courig says the information is useful.”

Spock didn't slap his forehead, but Kirk felt him want to. “Of course. Fully tunable, unlike the imprecise orbital dust insertion calculations we have long used, which are often disturbed by unexpected seismic activity or solar events.”

“Shields for T'Khasi would be handy in case of insane Romulans.”

Lia snorted “There's any other kind?” She craned her neck to look at the sweater. “That does look warm.”

“After _it_ happened--” Sarek paused to count, nodded to himself and changed what he was doing-- “the survivors came here and to the Embassy, most with only what they had been wearing at the moment of escape. Children, in particular, suffered from the chill, but within hours of our arrival so many people came to the gates with warm clothing that I was compelled to go on the air and say we had enough. That was after the _Enterprise_ crew supplied our every imaginable need or even want.”

“Forty-seven people meditating in one not very large room,” Nyota said, staring off into space. “I don't know how they even _fit_.”

“Extraordinary,” Sarek agreed, and bit through the yarn. He rummaged in his sleeve again and produced a sewing needle to tuck the ends away while Amanda finished the sleeve on her side.

“Quit jiggling that so much or I won't get this done.”

“She has arrived, you know.”

“I thought I sensed that. Your mother was, dare I say, surprised at the speed. Your poor father. I don't think he was quite prepared.”

“I was not the first time I witnessed a delivery. Other than James' untoward appearance, that is.”

She gave him a you-must-be-joking look. “I bet that was a real treat. When?”

“The night of the Loss. Spock's ship retrieved a small transport with many injured, one of whom was giving birth quite against her and her son's will.”

Bones interjected “A nice young Vulcan woman was very badly hurt. She kept apologizing because she couldn't stop her labor. I couldn't figure out why she thought she should be able to. We were rushing to Earth, I couldn't ask Spock because of, ah, everything, so I dragged your husband in and asked him what to do because I knew he'd had a lot of first aid training.”

Amanda wasn't letting Sarek off. “You didn't mention the whole Vulcan men not being around women in labor thing, did you, Mr. The Science Academy Pulled An Unscheduled Meeting When Spock Was Born So There Was No Chance You'd Have To Be There?”

“Of course not. Given the situation...It would have been better had it been a normal labor and delivery. The chaos involved was far too familiar.” He motioned to James' bag. “The first three births I witnessed were his, or rather his appearance on the gurney on which you were lying, then two bloody emergency cesarean sections. You know about Cordais, of course, nearly full term and her small self wounded in utero. The young man born on va'Pak was safely installed in one of these for several months and is now a normal infant. His mother is fully recovered, back at her job as a Kiri firefighter and will be able to have more children if she...hm. Her husband is back. _They_ will be able to have more children if they so desire. I, however, barely avoided an embarrassing physiological reaction.”

“The stress of the day, no doubt,” Spock said, deadpan outside.

“Perfectly understandable,” John agreed. “I have now seen and officiated at enough births of several species that I no longer have the instinctive urge to flee common to most Vulcan men.”

“Lhairre had to help me with Courig,” Lia poked her husband. “It's funny now, wasn't then. Courig had his shoulder stuck and I'd been rather badly shot up at the time so I couldn't dislodge him properly myself. Six children and that was the only labor that scared me.”

“Not even the first?” Sarek asked.

“The twins? Their conception was the frightening part, not the delivery. They were small and so good at getting untangled it was as if they'd been born before. I don't know how many times T'Pau and Sesek had tried. When we came back from our very first _ahem_ adventure time we had an emergency message. I'd been too young to conceive, but could we host four-day twin embryos for them within the next three hours? Nothing like making a snap life-changing decision. It was good training for all the rest of them. I've always been grateful that message came through.”

“Just so,” Lhairre said. “What would we have done without T'Jhu?”

“So what's this one, chopped liver?” Lia's bodyguard didn't resist a grin when she poked him. “Don't look so surprised, Jim. You know somebody pretty well once you give birth to them. Nepotism isn't a crime on that side. It's survival.”

“There must be so much to learn about life there,” Kirk said. “Can you...?”

“It would take all night. You saw the Romulan comedy. How did you find the humor?”

It _was_ funny, in a horrifying way he was half ashamed of. “Kril'es Mak's books are more to my liking, but they're really...ouch.” He didn't recall crying at a sci-fi show before, but one of the First Exodus episodes had done it to him. He had recognized the setting and the desperation that led to the wobbly ships taking off. _The Rising_ hadn't danced around the expectation that some would be lost when they left Vulcan, even if when he had been writing Mak had no idea how hasty the preparations would really be or how numerous the losses. The scene of a father telling his little daughter they might make it to a better life either way...

“Blunt? Brutally honest? That's pre-Reform Vulcan for you. Living with a constant background level of horrendous stress and fear, but enjoying life in bursts of often ludicrous happiness, check. Nothing has changed on that side of the line.”

“Precisely.” Captain T'Maekh had arrived. “I have had to make a great many explanations to my crew. Absolutely loyal, yes. Socially awkward in a Federation setting, also yes. Telling them they cannot drink on duty or have sex in the corridors was difficult.”

Lia nodded. “I have to remember not to flirt so much. It's not offensive on that side, it's expected, just as it's understood that some of us have no intention of following through. This one would be peeved if I didn't make comments about his attractiveness.”

“I confess to having become accustomed,” Lhairre admitted. “Such comments among the Sundered convey appreciation rather than ownership. That territory is nearly free of gender bias. I may be imprisoned and sold as a slave, but not because I'm a man. It's just business.”

“The Tal Shiar...” Kirk prompted.

Captain T'Maekh scowled. “Everyone had to deal with them sooner or later, most only once either way. Those on Romulus were more liable to have repeat encounters simply because the higher-ups are incredibly lazy and don't like to travel unless there's something in it for them, like not getting killed. Most inspection tours were bribable. If you were not in the military and didn't live on Romulus or Remus, odds are you'd only have one bad night where they burst in and tossed your house for the hell of it. Sometimes it was one city, sometimes multiple spots on a planet, then they'd go away and that place might not see them for another hundred years. Like an improbably large storm with a long repeat cycle: you might not get another in your lifetime, but it could be a week if the next coup went the wrong way. Worlds close to the Zone got hit more often because they hoped to steal your contraband. Rok and I lost all our good booze and our still to a raid at the War College. That bunch fell out among themselves and blew up both ships. Such wastes of life and resources have ruined them and the military at large. However, the constant abuse has led to advances in medicine the Federation wouldn't dream of yet. I understand the refugee plastic surgeons have done wonders already.”

“Those limb regen units are light-years ahead of anything we had,” Bones admitted. “Too bad the restoration methods come from undoing torture, but they're honestly brilliant.”

“Knowledge is not to be wasted,” Lia agreed. “While we have much to give one another, first we have to make triple damn sure the Tal Shiar is dead and gone.” She paused. “I also need to stop swearing so much. It's unsettling to the Kohlinahri. On that side, I'd never have been promoted without a good vocabulary.”

Amanda returned from the bathroom with James' bag. “Needed to clean the fishbowl. We'll need a bigger case for his inner bag soon. I must say, these gestation carriers are easier than pregnancy. If we'd had them back then, Spock might have had a dozen siblings.”

“Preferably some who aren't crazy, hm?” Sybok edged down the hall.

Kirk felt Spock tense ever so slightly, a mental flicking off of the safety with trigger finger still outside the guard, then the deliberate locking away of old memories. “You are not, these days.”

Sybok hung his head. “It excuses very little. I should have had the sense to ignore voices calling for a great wrong, and goodness knows I did enough smaller ones to you as it was.”

“It appears you have done a great deal of good in the intervening time, especially recently.”

“If it sticks. Nobody can predict what the Sundered will do with this chance. Maybe ten percent have learned enough about the Way of Peace to want it. Still, hope may be illogical to you, but I will anticipate the best possible outcome.”

“Oh, hush,” Ru said, rounding the corner. “You were frickin' _awesome_. Also, this is all going to work out. I have no idea how, but it will. Did you show them?”

Sybok was clutching a padd, which appeared to be on the Clan Finder ware. “No...”

Amanda unfolded his fingers gently. “You have relatives in the past rescue?” She looked down at the padd and burst out laughing. “Oh, sorry, you can't help _that_! On the other hand you're still mine.”

Spock looked over his mother's shoulder and didn't laugh, but Kirk felt him fight it down. He pointed to a link. “Have you made her acquaintance as yet?”

“Yes, she's still in the rehab unit in secure lockdown. On the other side of my line, however...” Sybok blushed green. Kirk looked at the offending file. “Be comforted that it's very distant.”

“A foremother of S'Harien Meri, which means Amanda's and mine,” Kirk chuckled. “If things keep happening at this speed, _I_ may need the number of that psychiatric radiologist.”

“I'd trust your brain further than General Ginar's.” The insane Golan general they had retrieved, Sybok's distant foremother, was upstairs at Memorial because of her injuries. Finding her a permanent place was problematic. “Her soldiers are still threatening to smother her with a pillow, cause her regenerator units to explode or barbecue her. They thought themselves unbeatable and assume her incompetence was the sole cause of the fall of Gol. It wasn't. They're also idiots. However, she is my foremother, and I appear to be the most responsible party for her.”

“Doesn't she have a bondmate?”

“Her first died in his Time, probably because she didn't like him, and her second in battle, also because she didn't like him, but there is one who would stay with her that she does like.”

“Rha'?” Spock invited the explanation.

“Sarek's anger aside, Hakeev has been wounded too many times and has drunk and drugged too hard to ever be sane again. He is on the locked ortho ward for two hip replacements. He's about as old as Ginar. Amanda, you can see where this is going. They have completely bizarre conversations about overthrowing everything even though they can't get out of bed. Neither believes Vulcan is gone, both think they're in a pre-Reform facility whose guards are bound to be sympathetic when properly bribed and they are quite content together.”

Sarek looked up from the sweater. “What happened when you explained who you are to her?” By tradition, Sybok would have been obligated to introduce himself.

“The most amazing thing happened. She asked about my brain surgery. She also hears voices telling her to do unproductively bad things. I have the impression she wouldn't mind if the suggestions led to great victories, but they're more along the line of 'go ahead, insult that guy, who's his wife anyway?' so she wants rid of the voices. I looked into her history. After a gunshot wound caused a severe concussion, she went from typical crabby officer to over the top paranoid general primed for world conquest. If she can't travel, we may bring my radiologist here, nuke her lesion and send her back to the secure mental colony slightly less mean, along with Hakeev.”

“You would be willing to take care of them,” Spock said.

“I have to, don't I? Family, man, you know how that is.”

“Yes, I do, sa'kai'kam.”

Sybok's eyes welled with tears; even Kirk read him like an open book. He took back the padd and changed apps. “I have a family, since. My wife, Lais, is a psychiatrist too, but her specialty is PTSD. These are the kids. Llair is seventeen, Helev is ten, S'Task is three. If they can grow up in a decent galaxy, it'll all be worthwhile.”

Amanda led the way through the delicate questions and difficult silences that followed, her own diplomatic skills such that Kirk often realized only belatedly how she had turned an awkward moment into a productive one. The glimpse of Sarek's mind made more sense now: _the one without which I will never again be complete_. There was a slow gathering of the family toward Sybok, a healing, not full trust but full forgiveness in a strangely un-Vulcan way.

“Excuse me,” Skon said meekly. They all turned to see him holding a grumpy-faced baby girl who clung to his robes and nestled in a fuzzy white blanket with pink hearts. “Rana says this one was no trouble. All of the tests are complete and nothing is amiss. Rana wishes to, as she put it, freshen up a bit and rest after this very long and eventful day. They will spend the night here for the usual monitoring, but all is well.” He bent down to show her to his father.

John did not laugh at him for being pale. He extended a forefinger, which the baby grasped with such a put-upon expression that it was impossible for John not to smile. “It seems you had a long and not pleasant day, Arre. They are not all so rough. And how was your experience, sa'fu?”

“That was one of the most astonishing, disgusting things I have ever seen. No one informed me that we emerge precipitately and covered in green slime. Rana had the ill will to smirk at me. This one will be S'chn T'gai Arre, of course, but we have filed her Terran papers for her dual citizenship and wish to continue our illogical but spiteful tradition of honoring Terra Prime's name requirements. Here she is Mary Grace Kadur in honor of her foremother S'Harien Meri, who used that last name because she was a stranger on Earth. Arre, ko'fu, your people.”

Skon put her in Lia's arms. After suitable admiration of her baby sister, she passed Arre to her husband. Lhairre pronounced her most esthetically pleasing. He handed her to Sarek and Amanda, who put her sweater on, then on from hand to hand around the gathering. The newborn was only mildly irritable and puzzled as she collected her greetings and words of welcome from the whole crowd and came back to John. “Where's Nick?” someone asked as she was handed off to Solkar.

John cuddled her unabashedly, straightened up from the corner of the couch and flipped back his robe, which had been snoring lightly. “Wake up, Nick, we have been grandfathered again.”

Nick blinked at the sudden removal of warmth. “Shit, I almost missed her. Uh...” he struggled to concentrate, “Rana's okay, that's good.” He put his hands out and received Arre. “Mary Grace, it was not apparent on your scans, but you look so much like Maggie. Yeah, I know, twenty-five percent, but to me, it really shows. That's the blanket we buried Rana in.”

“All of Rana's children used it at this age.” John bent over them. “Your eyes. They're already beginning to turn hazel. Her face has the shape of my Shaishonna's.”

“I can see echoes of my mother, too, so her Vulcan name fits. She doesn't look as much like Lia as I expected.”

“She may be glad,” Lia snorted. “It may keep my little sister out of trouble.”

“Not according to the Guardians,” Nick grinned. “She won't be _in_ trouble, the rest of the galaxy will think she _is_ trouble.”

“With a perfectly logical explanation,” John said. “S'chn T'gai madness.”

 

The end, or so it begins...


End file.
